Solitude
by Davin Sunrider
Summary: Samus Aran works alone. That's how it's always been, and that's how it always will be, or so she thought. When she encounters some ship thieves, the Hunter becomes ensnared in a web of theft and deception. On hiatus; low on ideas and busy with other stuff
1. Chapter 1

One

Approximately 48 hours after the conclusion of _Metroid Prime_

_Tallon IV orbit  
_

Samus Aran sat alone at the controls of her gunship, far above the planet Tallon IV. For the past two days, she had been resting, a rarity for her. The Hunter was usually extremely busy, going sometimes days without sleep as she went about her work. Her work was mostly blowing up Space Pirates, and that suited her just fine. If she got paid to do it, so much the better.

Regular bounty hunting, going after crime lords and smugglers and whoever else was stupid enough to do something to get a price on their head was enough to keep the bills paid, but it was rarely a challenge for her anymore. Thugs, be they humanoid or not, were never very smart, and her cannon made quick work of them all.

But Space Pirates, even though they were usually not much smarter than the average crime lord's henchmen, were infinitely more satisfying to destroy. Space Pirates had destroyed her first home and family, and therefore deserved to be wiped out, as far as Samus was concerned. Any job that had anything to do with the race of plunderers and conquerors was known among the bounty hunting community, such as it was, to be hers alone, and any who got in her way quickly learned why nobody else accepted Space Pirate contracts anymore.

A few days ago, Samus had destroyed a large Space Pirate base of operations, having trailed the damaged frigate _Orpheon_ to this system, and had subsequently vanquished the loathsome creature the Space Pirates called Metroid Prime, avenging the Chozo it had murdered with its radioactive Phazon. Samus had been spending the last couple of days thinking while she rested, sorting out all the details of the affair in her mind.

It had been an interesting adventure, challenging to say the least, and she would remember it for a long time. She would definitely have to do some more research on the mutagenic substance Phazon, at the least, as a result of what had happened on the planet below.

At present, Samus had no other jobs to do, so she had set her ship to orbit the planet while she recovered from the injuries she had sustained during her battles with Ridley and Metroid Prime. Tallon IV drifted slowly below her, and already the planet was looking a little better, though that might just be an illusion on Samus' part. The radiation that covered large parts of the surface would likely take decades or even centuries to drop to safe levels.

Samus leaned back in her chair and put her arms behind her head. Her Chozo powersuit stood behind her like a giant metal sentinel. Sometimes, when she was bored or had to think about something, she would talk to the empty suit like it had a mind of its own. She recalled that, as it was being designed for her by the Chozo, they had offered to give it limited artificial intelligence to assist her in her missions. She had rejected the voice systems, saying that it would distract her if the thing was talking to her while she was blowing away Space Pirates, but accepted the mission-assistance programs and upgraded sensors.

"You know," Samus said to the empty powersuit, "I like some of those upgrades we got while we were down there. I think that plasma beam might come in handy on my next job." Samus stared into the blank visor for a moment. She alternated between amused that she still spoke to the suit when she wasn't in it, and concerned, thinking that the day it answered was the day to seek help.

It seemed sometimes that the suit _was_ a separate individual, in that she almost became a different person when she wore it. The suit was the Hunter, feared by the criminal element of the galaxy, instantly recognizable by any who saw it as belonging to Samus Aran.

It was her own natural face that was the disguise. Samus had once experimented to amuse herself, striding into a cantina in her armor, and made a show of looking around, smirking beneath her visor at the panicked reactions of a few of the patrons before turning around and walking back out. Five minutes later, she had walked into the same cantina without her armor, made the exact same series of motions, and no one reacted in the slightest to her. The contrast had been fascinating at the time.

An alarm on her console beeped at her and pulled Samus out of her thoughts. She swung her chair back around to face the bank of monitors and keyboards, tapping a few controls to see what it was.

A ship had reverted to realspace a few thousand kilometers away. As she studied its outline, she didn't immediately recognize the design, but it looked vaguely familiar somehow.

There was nothing for parsecs around this system. Nobody would just stumble across Tallon. That was why the Chozo had chosen this world. If somebody was here, they were either looking for her, the Chozo, or the Space Pirates.

The Hunter wasn't taking any chances. She activated the cloaking device and cut the lights. Now the other ship's sensors, if they registered her gunship at all, would dismiss it as floating space junk. She set the laser cannons to slow charge, so she could blow the other ship away if it made any hostile moves.

Samus Aran waited, like a spider in its web, to see what would happen next.

--

Davin Ortry hit the braking thrusters on his ship and set the sensors for system-wide sweep. He had finally figured out where the Space Pirate frigate _Orpheon_ had fled to, and it was payback time.

Arriving at Zebes to find the planet virtually abandoned and the Pirate base there destroyed, Davin had set off in pursuit of the hyperspace trail of one of the frigates, the only thing he could do if he still wanted to kill some Space Pirates.

Some of the Pirates on _Orpheon_, he had discovered, were among the same ones who had murdered his entire family except his younger sister Malysa, who was dozing in her bunk a few meters away. Double reason to go after it, he reasoned.

As he checked the preliminary sensor readings, Davin glanced behind him, past the door to the cockpit into the rear section of the ship, where Malysa slept. He still thought she was too young to be tearing around the galaxy with him, one step ahead of the Galactic Federation and the Space Pirates, but there was little choice. Both organizations were after the Ortrys for the theft of certain high-tech weapon systems and this ship, which they had stolen from a Federation shipyard a few months ago, before it was to be sent off to some bounty hunter.

But, they didn't have any family Davin could leave her with while he pursued his revenge on the pirates who had murdered their parents. He still had nightmares about hiding under his parents' bed, trying to keep his little sister quiet while the brutes ransacked the house, stepping over the bodies of his mother, father and uncle as they smashed all the furniture, looking for something. Davin still didn't remember what, try as he might.

Hearing soft footsteps behind him, Davin glanced back again to see Malysa stumbling into the cockpit, rubbing her eyes. She looked over and mumbled something unintelligible at him.

"What?" he said. "Try that again."

She shot him a glare that teenage girls the universe over have mastered, and repeated, slower this time: "Are we there yet, dweeb?"

Davin grinned and shook his head. "Sure thing, banshee. We came out of hyperspace just a couple minutes ago."

Malysa yawned, showing off the overlarge canine teeth that were an Ortry family trait, and took a few more steps into the cockpit, looking out the viewport. Personally, Davin enjoyed his unsettling smile, but Malysa hated hers and was always bugging him to let her get them fixed. "I look like a vampire!" she often reminded him. Of course, he would then remind her that it was better to look scary in their present line of work.

She ran her fingers through her tousled electric-blue hair in an attempt to straighten it as she continued to wake up. Her natural color was jet black, the same as Davin's, but she frequently changed it, depending on her mood.

Davin shook his head again. He personally thought she looked ridiculous, but he was trying to let her have as much freedom as was reasonably possible. If the girl wanted to dye her hair and get fake tattoos, she was welcome to it as long as none of it was permanent. At sixteen, she was beginning to mellow out a little, but she still had her quirks. Still, sometimes he was glad he brought her along. It got lonely out there on the spacelanes, and he was glad to have someone to talk to in the monotony of hyperspace.

He reached over and mussed her hair as she sat down beside him in her custom, ultra-comfortable chair, one of the few things he had splurged on when he got this ship retrofit at a black-market shipyard a few parsecs from here.

She adopted a mock-furious expression and stuck her tongue out at him. He rolled his eyes. Malysa stretched her fingers and settled them over her keyboards as she prepared her own sensor sweeps. She reminded him every once in a while that he didn't know how to use the sensors properly, and he should just let her do it. Of course, he let her think whatever she wanted.

"Do we have the ugly buggers this time, or is this another red herring?" she asked as she reviewed the sensor readings. Malysa hated the Space Pirates just as much as he did, though she didn't actually remember much of the attack.

Davin pointed at one of his own monitors. "This drive signature is a few days old, but it's definitely the _Orpheon_. Looks like it had a reactor problem and crashed on the planet somewhere. I don't know what this other one is, the one that follows it down there. It looks like it came back up from the planet, but all traces of it disappear a few kilometers from here. Looks like whoever it was might have left."

His sister peered at her screen. "It looks similar to readings I've seen of Samus Aran's ship. Think maybe that Aran guy was here and went down to take a look? He's been known to go after Space Pirates, too." Malysa reached out and rapped her knuckles against the bulkhead near her seat. "You know, this was going to be his ship before we uh... appropriated it." She cocked her head. "I hope Aran isn't still here. I've heard he gets painful revenge on people who screw him over."

Davin chuckled, but raised the shields anyway.

--

Samus continued to peer intently at the newcomer. Suddenly, it popped into her head where she'd seen that ship before. It had taken her a few minutes because it looked so radically different from the last time she'd seen it. It was _her_ ship, the one the Federation was building special for her in appreciation for the countless jobs she'd taken on for them over the years. She'd almost punched a hole in the monitor when she'd gotten the communique from the Federation shipyard, saying that her new ship had been stolen and had escaped into hyperspace before the Fed ships had been able to catch it. It had been what, a week from being completed? It had disappeared more than six months ago, and looked like it had been heavily modified in the meantime.

That was it, all right. It had several more weapon emplacements, and another pair of engines besides the ones the original design had called for, but it was definitely her new ship. Instead of the original orange and black, it was now midnight blue with gunmetal accents.

Samus chuckled softly to herself. Whoever had modified it had done an excellent job. After she threw the thieves out the airlock, she might keep most of the modifications, if they were up to her own personal standard.

Her hand hovered over the firing control for the forward ion cannon. Before she fired, Samus stopped herself. What were the thieves doing in the Tallon system, anyway? Did they know she was here? She decided to ask them before she blew them into space. It would satisfy her curiosity, anyway.

--

The back of Davin's neck began to tingle a few moments before the first blast hit them. From the way Malysa was scratching, he knew she felt it, too. Something wasn't right. There was some kind of energy fluctuation a few kilometers away, and the readings from the planet were coming in, too, showing widespread radiation of a kind neither of them had seen before.

But there was still something else, something that still seemed wrong. He couldn't really put it into words, but he knew the feeling well and trusted it.

"Davin, let's go. Something creepy's going on here." He wasn't sure, but Davin thought he detected a tremor in his sister's voice.

"Way ahead of you, sis." Davin began slapping controls, arming the lasers and preparing to turn around and re-enter hyperspace. "Go make sure my suit's charged up, and strap yourself in once you get it ready."

Malysa must have been scared. She didn't even pretend to argue with him. She was on her way to the back when an ion blast hit them on the port side, only partially deflected by the shields.

Another supercharged blast hit them again in the same spot and almost flipped the ship on its axis. He heard Malysa grunt in pain as she was thrown into the wall, and a muttered curse as she picked herself up.

Davin wrestled with the controls as he strained to see where their attacker was. His sensors weren't registering anything.

"They must have a cloaking device. Man, do I wish we had one of those!" Davin quickly wiped some sweat out of his eyes and took the ship into a barrel roll, followed by a stomach-twisting corkscrew maneuver as he looped back in the direction of the hyperspace point. No point in crashing on the planet.

Their opponent wasn't going to allow that. A third ion blast blew a hole in the shields long enough for the other ship to slip a missile in and take out the rear shield generator.

"Who is this guy?" he heard Malysa hiss from behind him.

"Beats me. He's on me like stink on a Space Pirate. I can't shake him!" Davin threw a few of his choicer curse words at the enemy ship, wherever it was. If this kept up, they were going to be destroyed before long.

Wrenching the controls suddenly to starboard, he narrowly avoided another missile, pulling the ship into a loop and feeling the whole vessel shake as yet another ion blast grazed the hull near the engines. Davin frantically divided his attention between maneuvering and glancing at the monitors, trying to catch any readings on the enemy ship, anything that would tell him where it was, what it was, or _who_ it was.

Wait, what was that? Davin risked a longer glance at the monitor. _There!_ That fluctuation was back, a reading he had dismissed as residue from the crashing _Orpheon_ still floating around up here. It was moving much too fast to be space junk. It was probably a cloaked ship, the one that was attacking him.

His hand was on the firing controls when another two ion blasts in rapid succession took out his engines, disrupting the electrical systems. He was effectively dead in space until they reset. Davin smashed his fist into the bulkhead in frustration. He was better than this. How had the other ship disabled him so quickly?

He heard his sister dragging something forward, scraping along the deckplates. "I sure hope it's not Aran," she said.

"Hey, shut up. That's not even remotely funny."

"It's not meant to be." Her voice was serious.

Davin hissed a curse under his breath as his opponent finally turned off his cloaking device. It was indeed Samus Aran. The other bounty hunter's famous ship had its menacing lines pointed right at him, every laser cannon and missile launcher locked on to the front viewport.

Malysa chose this moment to come forward again, dressed in his flak jacket, and dragging Davin's battle suit behind her. She dropped his suit with a clunk on the deckplates and motioned him out of the pilot's seat. He rose and crossed to where his suit lay on the deck.

It was standard procedure for them to confuse potential boarders by making them think Malysa was alone on the ship while Davin prepared a nasty surprise for them. Another of his special modifications, carried over from their last ship, was a masker that disguised his life-sign as a power relay when he wasn't in his battle suit. That specialized armor didn't give off anything that sensors could interpret as organic. It worked surprisingly well, and had gotten them out of a few tight spots over the course of their career.

Davin snapped his helmet into place and ducked into the back, near the hatch.

--

Malysa Ortry took a deep breath and stole a quick look back at her brother. He caught her glance and winked at her through the visor of his helmet as he primed his weapons and ducked out of sight behind a bulkhead. She forced her features into a passive mask and waited for Aran to hail.

She didn't have to wait long.

Malysa answered the hail and the mysterious bounty hunter's armored visage appeared on the main screen, face hidden by his reflective blue visor.

"This is Samus Aran. I believe you have something that belongs to me." The cold, mechanically filtered voice held no trace of mercy or sympathy.

Malysa struggled fiercely not to let her nervousness show. Ordinarily, she wouldn't care, and would possibly even smart off, but she had heard things about this Aran. She had heard that he cared not for the personal safety of his prey, only that they reach his employer alive, if not necessarily intact. Unless ordered otherwise.

Thinking fast, she selected one of her fake names and surreptitiously tapped a few controls, activating the fake ship registry connected with that name. "This is Alysa Beneten. I believe you are mistaken, Mr. Aran. I purchased this ship new. And legally, I might add. I can show you the receipt."

That was at least partially true. She and Davin had taken the precaution of doctoring up registration papers for the ship, with all of them making it look like they had owned the ship for far longer than they actually had. It was possible, after all. The basic ship the Federation had modified for Aran had been available for about a year now.

Aran's inscrutable visor stared at Malysa for a few moments, as if waiting for her to blurt out the truth, which she nearly did.

She was saved when Aran transmitted again. "Prepare to be boarded."

--

Samus checked her weapons as she waited for the docking procedure to finish. The two hatches sealed together with a hiss of equalizing pressure.

She scowled. She hadn't expected a teenage girl to be aboard. What she had expected was a hotshot space jockey or possibly a Space Pirate who had stolen her new ship to learn about her superior weapons and technology. Samus couldn't just shoot that girl and dump her into space. She certainly didn't have room for a stowaway, though.

Jumping up, Samus drifted through the null zone where the two ships' artificial gravity fields canceled each other out and landed on her feet in the other ship.

She found herself looking into the business end of what was obviously a weapon. What surprised her, though, was what was on the other end of that weapon.

It was a man in sleek-looking battle armor, one her sensors hadn't registered. Where was the girl?

Samus cursed herself for being so foolish. What her sensors had registered as a fluctuating power relay had in fact been the person standing in front of her. As she had pulled the trick once or twice herself, she should have recognized it.

As she raised her cannon to point at his visor, she studied the man's suit. It was of extremely high quality, heavily armored, but obviously flexible. The armor was mostly nonreflective black, with dark gray highlights, and was vaguely reminiscent of a Chozo powersuit, though scans revealed it was not of Chozo manufacture. Its capabilities and shielding nearly matched those in her own powersuit, and the scans also indicated that the man inside had several cybernetic enhancements, some of which connected into the armor.

His gun did not completely encase one hand, like hers did, but was more like a rifle and apparently could be used with either hand, though she did notice that it hooked into his armor at the elbow, like a Federation Marine's weapon. She also noticed a pistol holstered on his thigh. Both weapons were not of a type she recognized, and as the Hunter and the armored man continued their standoff, Samus scanned those, as well.

The rifle was similar to her arm cannon in that it did not require ammunition, and was capable of an extremely high rate of fire. The pistol likewise did not require ammunition, though it was substantially weaker than the rifle. Samus was impressed. After she disposed of this thief, if the armor and weapons were in good enough shape to repair, she might keep them.

The armored man was the first to speak. "Detach your gun and drop it on the floor, or I'll put a plasma blast through your brain." He seemed to consider himself a threat to her.

Samus debated whether she could take him out before he fired. His suit had almost the same amount of protective shielding hers did, and she would likely be unable to do him sufficient damage before he did an equivalent amount to her.

His dark eyes glared at her from behind his visor. "Do it now!"

Samus frowned. She didn't really want to start a firefight in here and risk blowing holes in her new ship.

"You know who I am," she said calmly. "Do you think you can kill me before I kill you?" She began charging her cannon, the ball of energy collecting at the muzzle.

They stared at each other for a few moments, waiting for the other to blink. Of course, he couldn't have seen her blink even if she did, seeing as how her visor was reflective.

Her opponent shrugged, and slowly started to lower his rifle. "No guns, then." He made a point of letting her see him switch the safety on, then he dropped the gun on the deck. He raised his armored hands into a defensive posture.

Samus briefly considered shooting the fool anyway, but instead switched off her own weapon and detached it with her left hand, letting it drop to the deck at her feet. She shoved it away with her foot. This wouldn't take any time at all.

She could incapacitate the man, possibly questioning him later as to where he got his armor from, and lock him and the girl in the hold. She'd drop them off on the nearest station or planet, get her new ship repainted, and look for another job worthy of her skills. Provided neither of the thieves did anything stupid.

Anything more stupid than trying to steal a ship from Samus Aran.

The man raised an eyebrow, starting to circle her in the cramped space. "You're shorter than I expected, Mr. Aran."

Samus was glad he couldn't see her roll her eyes at him as she started moving, as well, her armored hands raised and clenched into fists. Most sentients she encountered assumed she was male, simply because of the aggressiveness of her fighting style. Most of the time, she didn't bother to correct them, simply because it was easier for her to not be recognized when she was out of her powersuit.

This idiot, however, she might take the pleasure of correcting. With extreme prejudice. Break a few bones, maybe.

The man in the armored suit seemed to be thinking. Thinking on what to do now. Perhaps he had realized how low his chances were of beating her.

As soon as his gaze shifted slightly, she sprang for him.

--

Davin managed to get off one kick before Aran was on him, gloved hands searching for his hidden helmet clasps.

Aran managed to find them, and turned his helmet around backwards, nearly breaking his neck in the process.

He flailed blindly, hoping to knock the other hunter away long enough for him to fix his helmet. He felt his boot connect with Aran's torso. Davin smiled grimly as he heard his opponent grunt in pain.

As he fumbled with his helmet, Aran tackled him again and ripped his helmet off entirely. He shoved the bounty hunter away, but too late realized Aran still held his helmet.

Davin tried to duck, but Aran clocked his unprotected head with the helmet and followed with a punch to his jaw with an armored gauntlet. He went down.

The other bounty hunter picked Davin up and bashed him against the wall, punching him in the gut as he did so. His suit caught most of the force of the blow, but it still knocked the wind out of him. Davin caught Aran's next punch in his hand and attempted to twist the other hunter's arm.

But no, Samus was too crafty for that to work. Aran held his arm steady with surprising strength and threaded his leg between Davin's, tripping him and kneeling on his chest.

Davin hooked his ankle around Aran's knee and flipped him over, rolling away to draw his pistol.

"I thought you said no guns, thief." Aran moved with cat-like quickness, darting forward to take hold of Davin's pistol.

Davin grabbed the other hunter's wrist with his left hand, straining to point the weapon at Aran. The armored warrior put both hands on the gun, putting all the strength a Chozo powersuit could provide to forcing the weapon's muzzle to point at Davin's unprotected head.

It became a contest of wills, both combatants pitting the full extent of their power against the other. Davin poured all of his concentration into keeping the pistol pointed away from him. It began inching closer and closer back toward Aran. He redoubled his efforts.

That's when the spiked knee caught him in the abdomen. He dropped the gun in surprise to clutch his stomach. The spike hadn't pierced his suit, of course, but the force of the motion knocked him backwards. His hands scrabbled against the wall, searching for a handhold to keep him upright.

Aran planted a boot in the center of his chest and contemptuously knocked him down. Not willing to give up just yet, he struggled violently to get up, but Aran punched him in the jaw, then grabbed Davin's head and began bashing it against the floor.

As he began to black out, Davin Ortry reflected what a colossal mistake stealing this ship had turned out to be.

--

Malysa took a deep breath as the two ships docked. Okay, so now Aran had them and was coming through to kill them, most likely. But Davin could take the other bounty hunter, couldn't he?

Maybe. Davin was only twenty-two, and nobody knew for sure how old Aran was. Maybe he was old and tired.

Yeah, right. Samus Aran had destroyed an entire planet's worth of Space Pirates all by himself. Or was it herself? Malysa didn't even know if Aran was a man or a woman.

Davin was good, but he was definitely no Samus. After how easily Aran had disabled their ship, the hunter had to be better than Davin. Her brother had once taken on an entire squadron of Federation fighters with this very ship and won, escaping with minor damage. On another occasion, he had flown circles around a Space Pirate dropship before causing it to crash on a planet's surface. But Aran had taken him out like he was nothing, a worthless amateur. He had no chance against the legendary hunter, she decided.

Malysa heard her brother talking to Aran, then sounds of a fight erupted from the back.

Fearing the worst, she grabbed an EMP grenade and a laser rifle from Davin's arsenal and dashed for the hatch.

She saw Samus Aran beating Davin senseless and sprang into action. Malysa primed and threw the grenade in one smooth motion, then snapped the rifle into firing position and armed it.

The EMP grenade had the desired affect. All of the electrical systems in Aran's suit began shutting down.

Malysa knew that the Hunter's suit was sophisticated, and would recover quickly from this kind of thing, so she fired her rifle directly into Aran's visor, knowing this would only disorient the Hunter. The powersuit was probably too well shielded for it to do much more than that.

She sprang forward, but Aran's booted foot hit her right in the stomach. She was surprised Samus recovered this fast.

Rolling with the impact, like her brother taught her, she took advantage of her smaller size and darted between the hunter's legs. She jumped up onto Aran's back, but the hunter just flipped her off, slamming her into the deck.

Malysa's breath went out in a rush. Aran grabbed her by the front of her flak jacket and threw her up into the ceiling, catching her in the back with a boot on the way down. Malysa felt a sharp pain in her lower back as she slammed into the far wall. Aran stepped over to her and picked her up by the collar of her jacket again.

"I don't want to kill you, little girl. You should give up while you still can."

"Up yours." Malysa spat on the hunter's visor.

"Suit yourself." Aran threw her across the room again.

When she landed, Malysa noticed that the maintenance hatch near her was open, and one of the power cables was unhooked on one side. Now she remembered. Davin had been working on the secondary starboard missile launcher, as he had noticed that it was behaving erratically. He'd unhooked the power, so as not to shock himself while he was working. But, the unhooked cable just might still be live. Sometimes Davin had to patch things on the run, so he had gotten into the habit of leaving the power on while he was working on things. Malysa told him all the time that he was going to shock himself to death one of these days, but he would just grin and wave her off. Had he left the power on, or had he listened to her, finally?

Malysa decided to take that chance. As Aran stepped closer, she let out a not-quite-fake groan and rolled over, her hand coming to rest on the insulated covering of the power cable.

Aran reached down to grab her again, but before the Hunter's hand could take hold, she jabbed the end of the power cable into Aran's thigh.

Malysa's gamble paid off. Aran's suit seized up as the electricity coursed through it and its systems reset themselves. She knew that the hunter would be mobile again in a few seconds, so, ignoring her screaming ribs, she reached up to Aran's helmet, fumbling for the release.

There was a sudden impact against her stomach, and Malysa was knocked back, the Hunter's helmet coming with her. An armored hand shot up to grab Malysa's wrist, and with a sudden pivot, her arm was pinned behind her back and her face was slammed into the wall.

"I'm getting tired of you." a distinctly female voice hissed in her ear. "I _was_ going to drop you and your friend off on the planet, but now I think I'll see if there's a reward for you two. "

"W-Wait! You can't turn us in!"

Malysa felt cuffs locking around her wrists as the Hunter answered. "Oh? Give me one good reason, little girl."

Samus jerked the girl around to face her, and Malysa saw her face for the first time. She was actually very beautiful, surprising considering Aran's reputation. She was glaring at Malysa, and she momentarily wondered what had happened to this woman to make her into the galaxy's most feared bounty hunter.

Her mind whirled as she tried to come up with an answer. What did she know about Aran?

"We hate the Space Pirates, too!" Malysa blurted. "They killed our whole family on one of their raids, and we came here to pay them back."

The Hunter appeared unimpressed. "The Space Pirates have killed a lot of people, little girl. That doesn't mean it gives you the excuse to go around stealing things." She tapped a hand against her armored chest. "Especially if they belong to _me_."

Malysa briefly considered attempting to summon tears, but reasoned that tactic wouldn't work on Aran, either. Besides, she wasn't the blubbering type, and wouldn't be able to sustain it very long, anyway.

She glanced over at Davin, who lay motionless on the deck. "At least let me check on my brother. You might have killed him." She tried to think what else she could say. "He's worth more, of the two of us, so if you mean to collect our bounty, you should probably keep him alive."

Aran reached out and grabbed the collar of Malysa's jacket again. As she wondered what the Hunter was going to do, Aran threw her down on the deck, planting a boot on her back.

"No sudden moves, understand?"

Malysa nodded, and watched as Aran stepped over to where her helmet lay on the deck and picked it up, putting it back on. The Hunter looked down at Davin through the visor and stepped over to him, kicking him in the side.

"He'll live." She pointed at Malysa with an armored finger. "If I take off your cuffs, are you going to try anything stupid?"

Malysa shook her head, already planning something 'stupid' to try.

--

* * *

Author's Note(prepare for a long one): This is a rewrite of an old story of mine, which was okay, but not the best thing I've ever written. I've since reworked the outline, and now I intend to continue with this story, having recently replayed 'Metroid Prime'. The first two in that sub-series are the only Metroid games I've actually played, though I have done my research on the rest of the series. You'll have to excuse anything that disagrees with a prior game or 'Corruption', since what I don't know, I make up. I don't have a Wii, and so haven't played 'Metroid Prime 3', so there might be some things that disagree with that game. I understand that game has more on the Federation, so if my version of it contradicts what's in 'Corruption', I'll fix it once I finally get to play it. No spoilers for MP 3 in reviews, please. I've already got one of my friends on strict gag order concerning the plot. ;)

Also, since you may be wondering because of my penname, the character Davin in this story is not meant to be me as a self-insert in any form. I decided I liked the name from the original story, and couldn't think of a different one for him, so I kept it. Many of my male protagonists are named 'Davin', so it's sort of a recurring thing for me.

Finally, as I have other stories I'm working on, also, updates on this story will be sporadic. My main project right now is a 'Legend of Zelda' story that, if you're interested, you can find in my profile. This is only getting started now because I've hit a temporary snag in that story, and so I need to think about something else for a little while. I hope this story is enjoyable, at least, and provides some good adventure fun to all my fellow Metroid fans out there. Honest reviews are always appreciated.


	2. Chapter 2

Two

_Tallon IV orbit_

Malysa Ortry sat next to her unconscious brother, her hands locked behind her, watching as Samus Aran looked through their ship. She slowly moved an inch closer to her brother, her hands searching behind her for the belt of his battle armor.

Aran's back was turned as she looked around in the cockpit, the hatch still open, though Malysa thought it likely she was still keeping tabs on her prisoner. She made sure to keep her expression neutral, and once or twice tried to look disheartened at being captured, but a thoughtful look kept creeping back over her features as she searched for the compartment on her brother's armor that had the stun-cuff disabler in it.

She'd managed to get a look at her cuffs, and they were of a type she and her brother used in their own bounty hunting work, and the disabler should work on them. If she could just _find_ the thing, she had a chance.

Aran's helmeted head swiveled toward her, and for a moment Malysa feared she'd been caught, but the Hunter pointed back toward the cockpit with one hand.

"Where's the autopilot?" she asked.

Malysa put as much disdain and sarcasm into her reply as she could. "Like I'm going to tell you. You're trying to turn us in to the Federation."

"If you don't want to go to prison, little girl, you shouldn't have done something stupid enough to get a price on your head." Aran tapped the side of her helmet. "I ran you two through my ship's computer, and you're worth quite a bit. You should compensate me nicely for all the trouble you gave me, and your brother will pay for getting this ship refit the way I want it."

"Is that all you care about? Money? It doesn't matter to you that all we're doing is trying to make a living?" Malysa continued to search her brother's armor behind her, and she figured if she kept Aran talking, the Hunter might not notice what she was doing.

Malysa couldn't see Aran's face behind her reflective visor, but her body language was contemptuous, as was her tone through the mechanical filter of her helmet.

"There are other ways to make money besides what you two have been doing." Aran ticked off the list on her fingers. "Grand larceny, namely this ship and several other high-value items from the Federation shipyards, breaking and entering, bounty hunting without a valid license, bounty hunting with a _fake_ license, attempting to bribe a Galactic Federation official, impersonating an officer of the Federation Navy, smuggling, destruction of Federation property, namely part of the shipyards and four docked ships... and that's just what they _know_ you've done. Don't tell me you're just trying to make a living. You and your brother enjoy your life of crime, but now you need to accept that it's over." Aran gestured out at the walls of the ship. "If you hadn't stolen my ship, I wouldn't care about you at all. But, since I've caught you..."

Malysa sneered. "Yeah, whatever." Behind her, she found what she was looking for, and fumbled it into place as Aran turned away again to look at the controls in the cockpit.

With a soft click, the cuffs sprang open, and she slid the disabler into the back pocket of her pants. The cuffs she folded into her palm, keeping her hands in the same position. Now, it was time for the last part of her plan.

"Hey!" she called to Samus. As the Hunter turned to look, Malysa gestured with her elbow at her brother. "I think you might have hurt him. At least put him in regen sleep so he'll recover." It didn't really matter whether Davin was put into regen sleep or not, since his cybernetic implants had already dispatched an army of nanobots to repair whatever injuries he had suffered in the fight. Being in his suit was accelerating the healing process, but Aran didn't need to know that.

"My scanner says he'll be just fine." Aran walked over to the two of them and grabbed Davin under the arms, picking him up and shoving him into one of the bunks in the rear compartment. She tapped the control on the wall next to it, and it sealed shut. She turned to Malysa. "Happy?"

Malysa grinned. "Yup." Suddenly jumping to her feet, she threw her cuffs at Aran's helmet and dashed for the cockpit.

The moment Aran paused was just enough, and Malysa was able to get inside the cockpit and seal the door, hearing Aran pound on it a second too late. Looking around, Malysa decided to make life difficult for Aran and sabotage a few systems.

She knew she didn't have much time, so Malysa first detached the Ortrys' ship from Aran's, and set the autopilot to send the ship through a few maneuvers, grinning as she heard Aran stumbling around in the compartment behind her. As the ship spun and dove, Malysa crawled under the console and disconnected the communications relay, severing the wires with her knife after she did so.

Next, just to be annoying, she activated the fire-suppression hoses in the rear compartment, filling it with retardant foam. Her grin grew even wider as she heard a heavy impact from the rear compartment, no doubt Aran slipping.

Malysa heard heavy pounding on the cockpit door, then weapons fire, and the door was suddenly wrenched open, revealing the Hunter, covered in retardant foam and obviously angry. Malysa scrambled to seal off the computer, and just as it beeped, an armored hand grabbed her by her belt and dragged her out from under the console.

Aran hauled Malysa to her feet and threw her against the bulkhead, placing the muzzle of her cannon just in front of the girl's face. "You are getting _really _annoying, little girl. Don't make me reconsider blowing you out the airlock."

"Screw you." Malysa flipped the Hunter an obscene gesture.

Aran reached over and tapped a few controls on the console, turning off the autopilot once she found it, and kept her cannon pointed at Malysa. The girl snorted with repressed laughter when a bit of foam dripped out of the barrel, and Aran glared at her from under her visor. At least, Malysa assumed she did.

The Hunter detached the cannon and dropped it on the floor, reaching out to grab Malysa's collar. With her other hand, she grabbed the flak jacket's zipper and pulled it downwards, spinning the girl around to press her against the bulkhead. Pulling the girl's arms behind her, Aran yanked the jacket off, produced two more sets of cuffs, and locked each wrist to the opposite arm just above the elbow. She then put the jacket on Malysa backwards and zipped it up, tying the sleeves around the girl's torso to further immobilize her. She locked another set of cuffs around Malysa's ankles and tossed the girl into the rear compartment.

Malysa got a face full of foam upon landing, and rolled over to spit it out. Aran picked her up and shoved her into the other bunk, sealing it closed, also. She bent her helmeted head next to the clear plastic covering and tapped an armored finger against it.

"Your bounty isn't worth this much trouble. I'm asking double for you."

Malysa laughed mockingly at her as the Hunter turned and strode away.

--

Samus checked the prisoners again, to ensure both were properly restrained this time, and stomped into the cockpit of the vessel, sitting down in the pilot's chair. Like she'd said to the girl, these two weren't worth the trouble they'd given her. She'd put up with enough in the last few days.

As she checked the systems, Samus discovered that the main computer had been locked down and the engines refused to respond to her commands. Upon attempting to rectify this, Samus discovered that the controls were locked and tied into the computer, which demanded a password. Any attempt to control the vessel was impossible without one of the Ortrys.

_That's it. I'm done!_

Samus stood and stomped back to the rear compartment, where she stepped into the space beneath the hatch and opened it. A force-field formed around the Hunter and propelled her up onto the ship's outer hull, and she took a few steps forward, her boots clanking on the metal hull as she shifted position.

As she looked for her ship, attempting to summon it to her position, the Hunter was treated to a spectacular unobstructed view of a huge Galactic Federation warship reverting to realspace several dozen kilometers away, backlit by the system's star and the reflected light of the other planets. It was long and dark gray, speckled throughout its bulk with glowing windows like the pinpricks of light scattered through the star-field framing the scene. Viewed only through the filter of her visor, it was an admittedly awe-inspiring image.

Samus tried to relay a hail through her ship, but immediately, the Federation warship fired at the Ortrys' vessel and disgorged a squadron of fighters. Cursing, Samus scrambled to get back inside. Once the hatch had sealed behind her, she rushed for the cockpit and raised the shields, which the computer allowed her to do, and then attempted to hail the warship with this vessel's comm. No response whatsoever. Upon closer inspection, the communications relay had been physically severed, and there did not appear to be a backup.

As the Ortrys' ship rocked with impacting weapons fire, Samus went back to where she had stashed her prisoners and roughly dragged the man out of his bunk. He was awake, if a little bleary-eyed, and scanners revealed that his cybernetic implants had repaired almost all of the injuries she had inflicted on him in their fight.

She pointed back at the cockpit as the ship shuddered under more blasts, and none-too-gently hauled Davin upright. "Your sister did something to the controls, and now we're being fired on. Get in there and unlock the computer." She cuffed him on the back of the head as he moved past her. "And don't try anything, either. Your sister exhausted what little patience I have for you two."

He smirked at her, but otherwise gave no reply as he entered the cockpit and settled into the pilot's chair. Samus anchored herself just behind him, and set the muzzle of her arm cannon just behind his head as a silent reminder to obey her instructions. She locked the legs of her suit, effectively securing her against any more sudden maneuvers.

Davin typed quickly on one of the keyboards with an armored hand, lights flashing on his gauntlet as he did so. His dark eyes darted back and forth between the monitors as he shunted power to the shields and gripped the joystick controls with one hand.

Punching a final series of keys, the thief flexed his fingers and wrapped them around the controls, pulling a trigger on one as he did so. The ship rocked under a final missile impact against the shields, and then he jerked the controls to the side and the Ortrys' vessel spun in a barrel roll, firing back with its own laser cannons.

"What's the range on your helmet connection?" Davin asked conversationally.

"Three hundred kilometers," Samus answered. "Why?"

He sent the ship spinning through a formation of Federation fighters, firing with all cannons and sending the fighters scattering like startled avians. "When I give the word, engage your autopilot and send the gunship chasing after us. It'll buy a few seconds, at least."

Samus gripped the headrest of his chair with her hand as he flipped the ship on its axis in a 180 degree turn, sending the pursuing fighters shooting past. "A few seconds for what?"

He glanced back to grin at her again, winking. "A surprise."

She pressed her cannon against his head. "You're not blowing up my ship."

Still sending the ship through careening turns and flips, Davin had the audacity to glance back again with an exaggeratedly shocked expression. "Why, I'm insulted that you thought I'd do such a thing. We're in enough trouble already, aren't we?"

Samus nudged his head toward the controls. "Just fly the ship."

She could see his grin in the reflection of one of the darkened monitors. "Yes, Ma'am."

Davin removed one hand from the controls to tap a few keys on a pad at the edge of his console, and placed his fingers on the small joystick next to the pad.

"Okay, now!" His jovial expression had been replaced by one of concentration, and he glanced quickly at the monitor tracking Samus' gunship as it closed in on the Ortrys' vessel, guided by the signal from her powersuit.

Once her gunship had drawn to three kilometers behind the Ortrys' vessel, Davin punched a key on the weapons control section of his console and a missile released from the rear launcher, but did not activate. He reached up to punch a few more controls on an overhead panel.

He pointed to a large orange button on the panel, not taking his eyes off the controls. "When I tell you, hit that button and get your ship out of the way, okay?"

Samus moved her hand up to the panel, and continued to watch as a small monitor flared to life, feed from a camera mounted on the missile he had released. It showed the Ortrys' vessel in a distant view, rapidly drawing away. Davin took control of the missile with the small joystick he had touched earlier, pulling it in closer to her gunship. He twisted the joystick, and the missile suddenly flared with a bright orange light and accelerated, heading right for the Ortrys' vessel as if the Hunter's gunship had fired it.

"Hit the button!" he said between clenched teeth, pulling the ship's nose starboard in a tight bank.

Samus pressed the button, and something at the rear of the ship blew away with a pop of explosive charges. He continued the tight turn, filling the viewport with the round shape of Tallon IV below, and Samus instinctively looked back as she felt a shockwave rock the ship, the result of an explosion. There was no air in space, so there was nothing to conduct its sound.

"What was that?" she asked, noticing Davin shutting all ship systems down out of the corner of her eye.

He continued to press keys as he answered. "That... was the missile hitting the engine I jettisoned and blinding the Feddies' sensors for a few seconds. Now, assuming I get everything they can detect shut down fast enough, they'll think you swooped in and blew us up, and we'll be far enough away that I can try to swing around the far side of the planet and wait for them to leave."

Samus nodded appreciatively. "Not bad."

He grinned, pleased with himself. "I thought so."

Unlocking the legs of her armor, Samus told her ship to set a course as if to leave the system, then shut down in the asteroid belt beyond the sixth planet and wait for her to signal again. She considered broadcasting a signal to the Federation warship, but the transmitter in her helmet was too weak, and only connected to her ship, anyway.

Davin leaned back in the pilot's chair, putting one armored hand behind his head as the ship coasted along in a wide, gentle orbit of the planet. "So, you mean to collect on us, do you?"

Samus flicked a bit of retardant foam off of her arm cannon. "Yes," she stated bluntly.

He smirked, rotating his chair to face her. "I understand my sister's responsible for the computer being locked down?" He idly gestured at her. "As well as... the rest of this?"

Samus nodded tersely.

Davin grinned. "Remind me to congratulate her. She was pretty quick."

Samus scowled behind her helmet's visor. "You can congratulate her at your trial. As soon as you repair the communications relay, I'm taking this ship back to the Federation warship and turning you two in."

He shook his head, still grinning. "I don't think so."

Samus raised her cannon and stepped forward to place the wide muzzle a centimeter from his forehead. "And why is that?" she asked calmly.

The thief's grin faltered, but he did not otherwise react. "Well, for one thing, there's an arrest warrant out for both me and my sister, and Federation troops have a bad habit of firing on this ship whenever they see it." He gestured under the console with one hand. "The communications relay has been completely disabled, and you know, we just don't have spares for it." Davin's grin returned, despite the cannon in his face. "Silly me, I forgot to buy them the last time we were in port."

Samus scowled underneath her helmet. This thief was entirely too cocky, but he was worth too much money to just kill him and turn in the body. He wasn't worth anything dead, as apparently the Federation wanted to know how he had managed to make their crack troops look like fools while he stole this ship.

She stepped back and lowered her cannon. "So, what are we going to do, drift in space until I finally shoot you for one too many smart remarks?"

Davin gestured at the viewport behind him. "I was planning on waiting for the Federation ships to leave, and then I was going to go down to the planet and scavenge components for the communications and a few other systems out of the Space Pirate base down there. You'd be free to come along and supervise, of course."

Samus stepped forward, looking up at the dimly visible shapes of the Federation battle group. She recognized their formation, and she smiled wryly beneath her visor. "Are you sure the Federation came here after you two? They would have to be very irritated with you to send this many warships."

Davin frowned and shifted in his chair to peer out at the distant moving specks of light. More warships had arrived, more than was reasonable for a pursuit of the Ortrys. The Federation had better things to do with its navy than send an entire battle group after two fairly small-time criminals, not with the Space Pirates stepping up their raids along their border with the Federation, as well as something happening toward the Galactic Core that had the admirals all excited, but not enough to release the details to the public.

The thief's frown became a thoughtful expression. "They're probably here for the Space Pirates, from the size of the fleet." He glanced up at her with yet another smirk. "Unless you destroyed them all."

"I did," Samus said bluntly. "I killed every one I found."

Davin nodded, a sudden angry scowl coming over his face. "Good. Bastards got what they deserved, then."

The angry look passed and he got to his feet, replaced by another smile he probably thought was charming. "Well, I don't know about you, but I'm pretty tired. I set our orbit to keep us on the far side of the planet from the Feddies, so they should leave us alone for a while. All the radiation should keep them from picking us up when we make our landing, but I'm not going to try that for another few hours." He waved with one gloved hand at the rear compartment. "I'm going to go check on my sister, if you don't mind. I'll make sure she doesn't cause any more trouble for you."

Samus planted herself in the door to the cockpit after he passed and raised her cannon to point at him. "Don't try anything."

--

Davin raised his hands, his expression mockingly sincere. "You have my word of honor as a professional thief, liar, occasional bounty hunter, and general-practice scoundrel."

Aran gave no reply, becoming still as a statue, but he could sense the frown under the opaque visor.

He smirked as he stepped back to the bunk Aran had sealed his sister in, shaking his head in amusement. Inwardly, his mind whirled, considering and rejecting plans for ditching the Hunter and getting out of this system.

Aran had already proved she could beat him in a fight, and she could out-fly him, too, so he had to find some way to get her off his ship where she couldn't give chase in time to capture them again.

He could try to strand her on the planet somewhere, but didn't think he had much chance of doing that, short of killing her and dropping a building on the body to make sure it didn't get back up. Anyone tough enough to eradicate an entire base full of Space Pirates by herself was certainly more than he could handle.

An idea formed in his mind, and he turned it over a few times to consider all the ways it wouldn't work. This was the best way to form contingencies, and he would need to time to work out all the details, preferably without interruption.

As he unlocked the bunk and helped his sister out, Davin snorted in amusement at the severity of her restraints. "What did you do to piss her off so much?"

Malysa grinned impudently as he unlocked the cuffs binding her ankles together. "Just being myself."

Davin grinned back at her. "Yep, that'd do it."

She pretended to glare at him as he unlocked the last set of cuffs. "So, any plans?" she asked quietly.

He frowned briefly. "I'm working on it."

Aran walked back to them, her metal boots making deep thumps on the deck plating. "I've decided what we're going to do."

"Oh, you have, have you?" Malysa said insolently.

"Shut up," Aran said, for once keeping her arm cannon lowered. "Like your brother suggested, we're going to land at the Pirate base in Phendrana, and find components to repair the ship. Once that's done, I'm turning the two of you in to the Federation, and then I'm leaving."

Davin crossed his arms over his chest. "Just that simple, huh?" he said, one eyebrow raised challengingly.

Yet again, the Hunter pointed her arm cannon at him. "Just that simple," she replied, a deadly edge in her mechanically filtered voice.

Davin pointedly ignored the weapon aimed at him and began removing his armor, placing it in the bin beneath his bunk where he stored it. Once the final piece had been placed in its slot, he retracted the bin and turned to face Aran again.

"I've still got a pretty big headache from that beating you gave me, so I'm going to grab a nap while we wait, all right?" Without waiting for her reply, he climbed inside and set his implants to link wirelessly with the ship's systems, allowing him to subtly manipulate the computer while he appeared to be asleep.

--

Malysa walked past Aran and sat down in her chair in the cockpit, propping her feet up on one of the inactive consoles. She idly twisted a strand of artificially blue hair between her fingers, her dark eyes locked on the Hunter with an intensity that belied her casual posture.

To her surprise, Aran came into the cockpit and detached her arm cannon, setting it on the console next to the pilot's chair. Then, she reached up to her helmet with one gloved hand, manipulating a control on the side. The red-and-orange armored suit faded out of sight with an impression of shrinking into nonexistence, leaving behind a form-fitting blue bodysuit and long blonde hair, tied back in a simple ponytail.

Aran sat down in the pilot's chair, one hand resting on her arm cannon. Her eyes met Malysa's, and the girl shrugged, making a dismissive wave with her hand to let the Hunter know she would cause no further trouble right now.

"So," Aran said, "where did your brother get that armor of his? I've never seen anything like it."

Malysa rested her hands in her lap, intertwining her fingers. "We stole it."

Again surprising the girl, one corner of Aran's mouth quirked in an half-smile. "I assumed that much. Where did you steal it from?"

"Federation R&D labs. It's a prototype that never went into production." Malysa leaned back in her chair and put her hands behind her head, gesturing at Aran with her elbow. "It's based on your suit, we think. It was supposed to replace the standard armor for elite Marines, but somebody figured a soldier's life wasn't worth the cost of manufacture, even one of those guys. We've made some modifications to it over the years."

Aran arched a skeptical eyebrow. " 'Over the years'? You're barely old enough to fly this ship, little girl. How long have you two been at this?"

Malysa frowned at being called 'little girl', but answered anyway. "Since I was twelve. Davin had finished basic training in the Marines, but he got in some kind of trouble he doesn't like to talk about, and he either got kicked out or quit. We lived on a station for a few months after that, and then he started bringing me along on jobs. I learned my way around computers pretty well, so I'd give him backup while he did the grunt work. Slice into security systems, fake alarms in different parts of the facility to create a distraction; stuff like that." Malysa shifted her feet on the console. "You probably wouldn't think so, from the thrashing you gave him, but he's good at what he does. He's no 'Samus Aran', but there's really only one, isn't there?"

Aran shrugged. "I suppose." She gestured at the console beside her. "So, what possessed you two to steal my ship? It couldn't have been the easiest to get to."

Malysa grinned. "It wasn't. But, we needed a new ship with certain capabilities, and this was the only one that came close to what we wanted. Plus, it was unfinished, so it'd be easier to change the registry and implement the modifications we needed." She casually glanced at the blinking light under her heel that showed Davin's progress, continuing her story and stalling for time. "I posed as a technician, and Davin got himself a job at the shipyards as a mechanic. Once we had our stuff safely stowed aboard, we blasted our way out of the shipyards and took it to a black market mechanic who outfitted it for us." She spread her hands with a wry grin. "Hey, you weren't using it yet."

Aran frowned, a sort of amused disapproving look. "You've both got guts; I'll give you that. Why a life of crime, though? Why not find something more productive to do?"

Malysa smirked. "The straight life's too boring. We tried it for a while, but it doesn't give the right kind of rush, you know? Probably the same reason you took up bounty hunting."

Aran scowled darkly. "That has nothing to do with why I hunt. You couldn't hope to understand."

Malysa pulled her feet off the console and dropped them to the floor, scowling right back at her. "Oh?" she demanded. "We couldn't hope to understand what it's like to have your life destroyed by a bunch of dirty, stupid brutes who just want whatever valuables you have, and don't care what they wreck in the process? We couldn't hope to understand seeing your parents murdered right in front of you, and wanting to scream but knowing you couldn't, because they'd find you and blow you apart, too?" She stood and planted her hands on her console, leaning over to glare at Aran. "Oh, yes, there's _so_ much we couldn't understand, because we're just a couple of low-life criminals while you're the pinnacle of righteousness. Is that it?"

"That's not what I said," Aran said calmly, "but that doesn't excuse what the two of you do for a living."

"Why the hell not?" Malysa exploded. She pointed an angry finger at Aran. "We're not that different, you know. You ignore whatever laws you want, too, and the Federation only leaves you alone because you work for them so often."

Aran leaned back in her chair, crossing her arms. She did not respond, and her face settled into an expressionless mask.

Malysa scoffed disgustedly as she threw herself back into her chair, spinning it to face the opposite direction. She pulled a book out of a compartment underneath her console and opened it, touching the screen and scrolling through the chapter list to find the place where she had left off.

An hour or so passed in complete silence, the barely perceptible sound of Aran's breathing the only sign that she was still there. Malysa glanced back once to check the subtle pulsing light on her console, out of Aran's line of sight, and saw that it had not changed color, so she began to turn around again. She stopped when she caught the Hunter's expression. Aran's features were drawn in a haunted look, as if she were remembering a distant, disturbing memory.

She blinked as she saw Malysa looking at her, and her face lost expression once again, her eyes moving to look out the viewport. The girl shrugged and went back to her book.

About an hour and a half later, Davin came forward, dressed in the tight black coverall he wore under his armor, the connector ports on his chest, neck, and wrists shining dully in the dim cockpit lighting. His footsteps woke Malysa, who had dozed off, her book lying forgotten on the floor, and when she saw that it had shut itself off, she stowed it again.

"What's up?" she asked, glancing at the light on the console. It had changed color from red to blue at some point while she was asleep, and Davin nodded slightly as she looked up at him.

"Time to land," he said, gesturing for Aran to get out of the pilot's chair.

The Hunter stood and moved aside, standing behind Davin's chair as he sat down. He powered up the sensors, keeping them weak to avoid detection, and cautiously scanned the fleet overhead.

He made a face. "Are these guys still here?"

Malysa studied the readings on her own monitors. "They're too far away to detect us here, but we're going to have to be careful on the landing. It looks like they've sent troops down to search the planet."

Aran stepped closer to look at the screen for herself. "Why? There shouldn't be anything of interest for the Federation here. The Space Pirate base has been destroyed; they should have been able to tell that from orbit."

Malysa shrugged. "Beats me."

Davin glanced over at them. "Maybe they're here for something at the Pirate base, or looking into whatever's causing all that radiation."

Aran frowned thoughtfully. "They should stay away from the Phazon. It might be a powerful source of energy, but it's incredibly mutagenic, too. It's much too dangerous to use. I'll have to warn them about it when I turn you in."

"Yeah, sure," Davin said nonchalantly. Malysa caught the darkly amused look he gave the Hunter's back, wondering what he was planning. It involved whatever he'd been doing to the computer for the last couple hours, but she didn't know much beyond that.

Malysa continued to study the sensor readings for a few moments. "If we keep low, we may be able to land in Phendrana without alerting the Marines."

Aran crossed her arms and straightened. Malysa realized for the first time how tall the Hunter was, even without her trademark suit. "I don't care if we alert the Marines. You're still my prisoners, and I'm still turning you in. Make a regular landing at these coordinates." She reached passed Davin and typed a series of numbers into one of the keypads.

Davin threw her an irritated look, but complied, and the thrusters flared to life, pushing the ship down in a sweeping arc to the planet's surface. The Ortrys fastened the seatbelts on their chairs, but Aran remained standing, her only anchor a solid grip on the back of the pilot's chair.

Malysa watched as her brother kept a steady hand on the controls during the descent, following the course Aran had indicated. The atmosphere sped by, thin white clouds whipping past them as they rocketed over multicolored terrain. As they slowed, more details gradually came into focus, until all that could be seen below them was a vast expanse of white dotted with snow-covered peaks, sinkholes, and the occasional sharp edge of a building.

Aran pointed at a spot where the tips of two metal towers met, connected by a wide bridge crossed with the wreckage of a collapsed stone tower. "Set down there."

Davin guided the ship down and slowly positioned it over a tiny spot of bare space uncluttered by wreckage, extending the landing gear. He slowly lowered their ship down, until, with a gentle bump, they settled on the metal walkway connecting the two towers.

Malysa could see the remnants of a much older stone structure, patched and modified with ugly, functional metal additions. Typical Space Pirate architecture; replace whatever was needed for the new structure, and destroy anything that got in the way with total disregard for aesthetics. It was clear the original structure had been a beautiful stone temple of some kind, but only hints of its former splendor made themselves manifest through the crude additions.

Aran pulled her arm cannon back over her right hand and manipulated something on it. Her armor reappeared, and she gestured to the rear compartment with the cannon, making a curt wave with her gloved hand.

Davin and Malysa stepped out into the rear compartment, and Aran closed the door of the cockpit behind her, wrenching the handle to forcibly lock it shut. It would be impossible to open again without the mechanically enhanced strength provided by a suit of powered armor.

Aran pointed at Davin. "Get your suit on. You're coming with me."

As he bent to open the bin beneath his bunk, Davin glanced back at his sister. "What about Malysa? We don't have another suit with the right kind of shielding, and it's much too radioactive out there to go out unprotected, not to mention the temperature and the predators I scanned on the way in."

Aran held up a set of stun cuffs. "She's staying here."

Malysa backed away, holding up her hands. "Hey, those aren't necessary. I'll read a book or play a game or watch a vid or something," she said quickly. "No more trouble, I swear."

The Hunter stepped forward and locked the cuffs around the girl's wrists. "I don't recall putting it to a vote," she said coldly, activating the charge. Now, if any attempt was made to tamper with the locking mechanism, the cuffs would give off a powerful numbing charge, enough to discourage further attempts.

Davin glared at Aran through his visor as he secured his helmet with a hiss of equalizing pressure. He reached back into the bin for his rifle, but Aran grabbed his shoulder and shoved him toward the hatch, pointing upwards.

He ascended onto the outer hull through the force-field, and Aran followed shortly, leaving Malysa alone in the ship. She looked around the now-empty cabin and sighed disgustedly. Now what was she supposed to do?

Remembering Davin's tampering with the computer, Malysa crossed to the washroom and pressed a few of the bolts holding the mirror to the wall in a specific sequence, typing in a string of numbers on the hidden keypad that appeared when one of the metal plates on the wall slid aside. This revealed a hidden terminal, with a keyboard extending over the sink and the mirror serving as the screen.

Malysa looked through the main computer for a few moments, trying to find what Davin had changed or altered. When she finally found it, her lips curled in an appreciative grin.

_Sneaky devil_, she thought to herself.

This would be interesting, and pretty fun, too, if it worked.

* * *

Author's Note: Like I said in the first chapter, updates on this will be sporadic until I finish my larger Zelda project. I do have most of Chapter Three written out right now, but I'm not sure how long it will be before I post it. Honest reviews are appreciated, so let me know what you think. Till next time!


	3. Chapter 3

Three

_Tallon IV surface:_

_Phendrana Drifts Space Pirate facility_

Davin Ortry rolled out of the way as a stream of flaming death streaked toward him, aimed for his face. He ducked against a stack of crates, glancing at the radar in the upper left corner of his helmet display. The weapons fire came from a creature on the other side of the wide, dome-shaped chamber, which lacked any lighting whatsoever but for the dim, pale blue glow of the walkway running in a spiral around its outer edge.

He smirked at the only occupant of the room not firing at him, a tall human encased in a suit of red-and-orange armor with what could only be described as a cannon covering one hand. "I thought you killed all these guys!" he said over their comm connection, his tone sarcastically amused.

Samus Aran made no indication she had heard him, jumping up to fire a series of quick bursts of energy from her cannon before ducking back down to avoid the return fire. "They must have been hiding somewhere else in the facility," she said. "I didn't go through the whole thing the first time I came through here."

Davin leaned out from behind his stack of crates to regard the group of aliens through the thermal filter of his visor. "You should've let me keep my gun."

"I can handle it."

The Hunter jumped sideways from her cover, loosing several bright globules of energy from her cannon that left streaking trails of light behind as they sought out their targets. The missiles detonated against the enemies' cover, and one of them growled in agony before toppling backwards, a smoking hole in his chest. His comrades huddled behind their own barricades, grunting to one another in their unintelligible language.

Aran fired several more times during her sprint, and finally crouched next to Davin behind his makeshift barricade, not reacting as several weapons bursts impacted against it. "How many of them are left?" she asked.

Davin kept his helmet low to the ground, between the walkway and the bottom of the railing. The helmet was completely nonreflective, and unless the enemies had thermal visors, would be unnoticeable. There were still three of them left, tall, thin humanoids with bestial heads and slender, muscled limbs. Their weapons were integrated into their minimal armor, and by their outlines, Davin could tell their attackers were simple grunt troops, barely smart enough to use a galvanic accelerator cannon, the standard weapon for Space Pirate infantry. What they lacked in brains, they exceeded in firepower; it was part of the reason why Space Pirates were so successful on their raids.

"Ugly bastards," Davin muttered to himself. He turned his head to face his temporary ally. "There's still three I can see, though I think there's one more on the level above us."

As if in answer, a missile impacted with their stack of crates, destroying the top row and crumpling the one currently closest to Davin's head. Aran returned fire, but a quick glance upward revealed a lone Pirate crouched behind a computer console, one of the monitors sparking from a previous shot.

Davin grinned, reaching over to tap the Hunter's armored shoulder. "You take those three. I've got this one."

Without waiting for her to reply, he tensed his legs and sprang upwards. His arc, longer and further than was even remotely possible for ordinary human legs to push a body, brought him right over the lone Pirate's head, and he landed in a crouch behind it, legs splayed and one hand planted on the walkway to steady himself.

The brute slowly turned around to face Davin, obviously surprised at what he had just done. With another suit-assisted burst of energy, he charged forward and crushed the Pirate grunt's torso against the bank of monitors, breaking one off completely and bending the entire console around the grunt's body.

Davin stood, looking down at the Space Pirate as the last spark of life faded. He kicked the body contemptuously, making sure it was dead. Flexing his fingers and hearing the almost imperceptible mechanical whine, Davin looked down at his armored gauntlets.

"I love this thing," he said to himself, smiling. "Never gets old."

"Are you finished up there?" Aran asked over the comm line.

"Yep," he answered. "You?"

"Just about."

He leaned over the railing, watching through the thermal filter in his helmet as the bright shape of Aran fired a burst of purple energy from her cannon, the beam splitting into three rays as it spread out to hit one of the Pirates who was just a little too much out of cover. Howling, it convulsed as electricity coursed through it, sparking out of its armor, before it toppled over the railing to land on the floor of the chamber below.

One of its comrades popped up to fire at the Hunter and was met with a missile to the face. The concentrated burst of energy flipped the bestial soldier end over end, and within a fraction of a second, another missile drove the third Pirate out of cover, scrambling across the walkway as it fired wildly.

Three of the needles of red energy struck Aran in the chest, but she continued forward as if she hadn't noticed, firing again with long bursts of plasma. She paused for a second to charge a blast, and when the Pirate charged her position, she let him have it. A meter-long stream of pure fire coursed out of the Hunter's cannon, and the Pirate was consumed in moments, shrieking.

Davin planted a hand on the railing and heaved himself over, angling himself to land beside Aran. He grinned as he straightened, knowing she wouldn't be able to see it through the thermal visor. "Nice. I still like my gun better, though. Shame you won't trust me with it."

Aran regarded him through the opaque mask of her helmet's visor. "Yes. A shame." She gestured off at the door at the bottom of the room. "We should keep moving. There might be more of them still here." She started to move off, but then spoke again, the barest hint of humor in her voice. "They had an annoying habit of popping back up again in places where I thought I'd killed them all."

Davin nodded, a smile quirking the corners of his mouth. "Same goes for me. I remember a Pirate research facility I hit once where I was pinned down for twenty minutes by what seemed like an endless stream of reinforcements. I'd keep blowing them up, and they'd keep coming through the door. It was like shooting rats in a trash can."

Aran's only reply was silence as she led the way to the next door.

_So much for softening her up with war stories_, Davin thought amusedly. _You'd get more sympathy from a black hole._

In search of components to repair the Ortrys' ship, the two of them headed deeper into the facility.

--

Malysa Ortry lay on the floor in the rear compartment of the small vessel she and her brother called home. It was tiny, barely more than the basic necessities required for lengthy interstellar travel, but it was a whole lot better than some of the dumps they had lived in before settling into their current career. While not exactly rich, burglary, smuggling, and occasional bounty hunting made them fairly well-off, enough to spend money where it counted, on their equipment.

The sixteen-year-old lay on the floor mostly because there was not much else to do. The cockpit was currently inaccessible, thanks to their unwanted passenger and captor, Samus Aran, and thus tampering with the controls was all but impossible.

But, it was not totally impossible. It had been hours, but Malysa had still not received the signal from her brother to implement the plan he had formulated while pretending to be asleep earlier that day. It had a fairly high chance of working, provided he could come through on his end.

So, she waited, glancing at the clock often and periodically going through what her brother had shown her of the unarmed combat moves taught to him in basic Marine training. Some of them were rather difficult, as Aran had kindly thought to lock her hands together with stun cuffs before leaving, but she made do.

Malysa hissed angrily through her teeth as the cuffs interpreted one of her motions as unnecessary pressure and warned her with a shock. Loosing a string of curses that would earn her a disapproving frown from her brother, Malysa sat down on the floor and leaned against the wall. Chuckling, she added a few more in different languages, flouting her brother's admonition that she was too young to swear.

He was probably joking when he reprimanded her most of the time, but sometimes you couldn't tell with Davin. He could go from telling an off-color joke to imparting some sort of serious advice in the blink of an eye, and even after spending her entire life thus far around him, Malysa was still sometimes surprised by the abrupt change.

She checked the clock. Three hours since Davin and Aran had left. In all that time, she had received precisely one communication, a ten-second update on their progress from Aran.

Malysa reached up with her bound hands and pulled a strand of her hair in front of her eyes, looking at it. Electric blue was fun, but it had been like this for a couple months now. Perhaps it was time for a change. Maybe metallic red or bright green next, or even eye-burning yellow, the only shade Davin had considered too strange and asked her to change. That had been a fun couple of days, with her brother throwing his hands over his eyes and making exaggerated protestations every time he looked at her, claiming he'd been blinded.

She sighed. She hated waiting. The worst part of jobs was when Davin had to go to comm silence while he snuck in, until he was sure their communications wouldn't be intercepted. Despite his regular lessons in combat and weapons training, Davin still refused to let her come with him on any jobs, and so she stayed in the ship almost all of the time, providing what support she could.

A couple more hours passed, during which she decided on a new color, and finally, the comm buzzed. Malysa stood and moved over to the panel on the wall, punching the answer button. "What's up?"

"We found the components. We're on our way back." Aran cut the connection suddenly, and Malysa felt a rush of adrenaline flow through her. Almost time for Davin's plan now.

She went to the hidden terminal in the washroom and powered it up, waiting for Davin's signal. Tracking her brother and the Hunter through the ship's sensors, she could see that they were near a wide-open space. Nervously, she punched in a series of commands, priming the thrusters. This would require careful timing, and the Hunter would probably kill both of them if it didn't work.

Maybe not, but Aran hadn't gotten her reputation for ruthlessness through sheer rumor. She'd be angry either way, and having an angry Hunter on your tail was a sure ticket to a violent end.

Malysa hoped her brother knew what he was doing.

--

Samus walked slowly, making sure the thief stayed in front of her. He was planning something. She didn't know what, but something told her to be cautious and watch him closely.

He carried a crate full of scavenged components they had removed from a few of the labs in the Space Pirate facility, enough that he assured her he would be able to repair the communications system, her top priority. Samus had no desire to be shot down while attempting to turn her prisoners in; they'd given her much more trouble than they were worth already.

The snow crunched under her boots, and was the only sound that disturbed the still air of the wastes. The two of them were walking through a wide, open space, a sinkhole where the endless ice of Phendrana parted for a few meters.

"Stop," Samus said to the thief, spotting a round blue shape curled up in a snowbank a few meters away.

Scanning it, she verified that it was indeed a baby Sheegoth, the supreme predator of this region. They were dangerous even when they were young, and they were incredibly difficult to kill when they grew to full size. Not beyond her capabilities, but Samus preferred to avoid them whenever possible.

She heard an unexpected sound, the low whining of thrusters, and looked to the sky, expecting to see a Space Pirate with a jet-pack swooping in out of nowhere, as had happened to her dozens of times during her explorations of this planet.

No, this was too loud to be a jet-pack. This was an approaching ship. Who would...

Samus was briefly surprised to recognize the outline of the Ortrys' vessel. How had the girl gotten it here?

Then her hunter's senses snapped to full alertness. This was what the thief had been planning! She raised her cannon to point at his back, only Davin was no longer where she had left him. A blur of motion attracted her attention, and she saw him jump straight up, at least six meters into the air. The ship swooped underneath him, and just as Samus made ready to fire at it, he reached into the crate and drew out one of the components.

With a mocking wave of his other hand, Davin hurled the component at the sleeping Sheegoth, which immediately leaped to its feet, growling.

Samus began charging a plasma blast, and a chill slipped down her spine as she heard not one, but two heavy sets of footsteps behind her. She turned her head to see two adult Sheegoth approaching, growling softly.

She glanced back up to see Davin climbing inside the ship, waving once more as it blasted up on a course out of the atmosphere. Samus hurled a series of unspoken curses at the thieves as she rolled away from the first Sheegoth's charge, readying a super missile.

She locked on to the Sheegoth's only weak spot, its mouth, and as soon as it left her an opening, released the missile. The huge beast roared in pain and stumbled backwards into its companion, who charged her next.

This wouldn't be difficult; just time consuming, and that was exactly what the thief had been counting on. Samus cursed him one last time, and then gave herself wholly over to her combat instincts.

--

_Tallon IV orbit_

Davin wrenched the cockpit door open, chuckling to himself. He let the chuckle grow into a full laugh as he pulled off his helmet and sat down in the pilot's chair, punching in the commands that let him have manual control.

"What's so funny?" his sister asked, settling into her own seat and buckling in.

"I escaped from the famed Samus Aran," he replied, still laughing. "That's gotta put me in a very select club."

She smiled wryly. "Well, try to contain your amusement. In case you hadn't noticed, there's still a full Federation battle group prowling around this system. Not to mention the fact that Aran is still alive. She's even more pissed off at us than she was before, so we'd better lay low for a while."

Davin nodded, making minor adjustments to the controls as the atmosphere gave way to open space. He glanced at the sensor readings, and saw that most of the Federation ships were up at the northern hemisphere of the planet. So, he set his course straight 'down' and poured on a burst from the thrusters before shutting them off to let the ship coast on its own momentum for a while.

He turned his chair to face his sister. "So, did you have much trouble flying the ship from that terminal back there? It wasn't really meant for that kind of thing."

She grinned. "I got to you, didn't I?"

Davin grinned back. "Great job, banshee. In return, I'm willing to limit my remarks on your... whatever you've got going on there." He gestured at her.

Malysa twisted a finger through her now fluorescent orange hair. "I got bored. Can you unlock these cuffs, please?"

He leaned over the console and removed the cuffs Aran had placed on his sister. As he sat back down, he reached out and flicked a lock of hair hanging over her face, snickering.

She gave him a mock glare. "Shut up."

He ignored her and snickered again, reaching up to grab a bit of his own short black hair between two fingers. "Should I change mine to match?"

"Shut _up_!" Malysa demanded only half seriously, smiling despite herself.

Davin pointed at his forehead with his index fingers. "I think you should change your eyebrows, too. Maybe go for the whole package and make your eyes that horrible yellow color you tried once."

Giggling, she reached over her console and shoved his shoulder. "Knock it off!" She crossed her arms, imitating the disapproving frown he adopted whenever she did something that annoyed him. "It's not nice to tease your sister."

Davin raised a finger, smiling. "Ah, but that's what older brothers are for. How else would you know you look like a deranged cultist?" He reached out to flick a strand of her newly orange hair with his finger again. "Maybe you should shave your head. Then you'd look _really_ strange. Especially with the yellow eyes." He widened his eyes comically.

Malysa rolled her eyes, swiveling her chair back to face her console. "I think you should concentrate on flying instead of making fun of me. In case you hadn't noticed, we're being followed."

Davin turned back to the bank of monitors lining the top of his console. "Hey, what do you know, we are. I hope he's not trying to hail us, otherwise he's going to get his feelings hurt when we ignore him."

Malysa snorted. "You're in a good mood."

"You've got that right," he replied. "It's not every day you manage to narrowly avoid being turned in by the scariest bounty hunter out there. We'll shake this guy and then we'll get out of here. Back to Nugx's for repairs?"

She nodded. "Sounds good. He's going to throw a fit when he sees the ship, though. He just finished patching it up from the last time you decided to have a shoot-out with a squad of Fed fighters." Malysa made a face, imitating the mechanic's scowl.

Davin chuckled as he twisted the controls to avoid incoming fire from the pursuing fighter. "That's just for show," he said. "He's not happy unless he has something really complicated to do."

He fired a warning shot back at their pursuer as he plugged the coordinates into the navigation computer. They'd have to use a roundabout route to avoid attracting Federation attention to Nugx's base. Nugx was the best black market mechanic in this sector, and he'd earned that position by being the only one the Federation hadn't managed to arrest at least once, by virtue of never being able to find him.

Their pursuer, a Federation fighter, fired at them a few times, but Davin dodged the blasts and shot back with the rear cannons, purposely never doing more than minor damage to the fighter's shields.

He spun out of the way in a corkscrew maneuver, aiming one shot carefully for the shield right in front of the fighter's cockpit. Despite the bright flash of light, it doggedly continued its pursuit.

"He doesn't seem to take a hint, this guy," Davin muttered. He turned to his sister. "I've almost got the jump ready. Hit him with an ion blast."

Malysa nodded as she shifted firing control to her console. He checked the navigation computer as it finished its calculations, and watched on the tracking monitor as the ion cannon nailed the Federation fighter right in the viewport, punching through his shields to disrupt his electrical systems.

"Hah!" Davin crowed. "Great shot, banshee! Here we go!"

Davin activated the hyperdrive, and the Tallon system disappeared in a blur of stars.

--

_Tallon IV surface:  
Phendrana Drifts_

Samus kicked the Sheegoth's corpse to make sure it was dead, then scowled up at the sky as silence returned to the region.

Alone again, as usual, as preferred, but not according to plan. The Ortrys had escaped her, making them the first in several years to do so. This went beyond the theft of her ship and the price on their heads now. Now, it was a matter of pride and anger. No one escaped the Hunter, not for long. Bringing those two criminals in to face justice was now her first priority.

"It came from over here!" called a voice at the top of the sinkhole. The helmet of a Galactic Federation Marine appeared over the edge, peering down at her. "There's someone down there! It's the Hunter!"

As Samus watched, four more Marines appeared next to the first, looking down at her. "Do you require assistance?" one shouted down.

"Do you have a ship?" she shouted back.

"Yes, we do! Wait right there!" the same Marine yelled.

The Marines disappeared, and a few moments later, an _Anhur-_class patrol ship swooped in with a roar of engines, hovering slowly to a stop just above her. It extended its ramp, and even before it had opened all the way, Samus jumped, aiding her leap with the boot-mounted thrusters she had acquired during her exploration of Tallon IV's ruins.

An officer extended a hand as she stepped further inside. "Welcome abo-"

"Just get me in orbit," Samus interrupted. "I need to get to my ship."

The officer nodded, the cabin lights reflecting off of his faceplate. "Certainly. Where is it?"

"In the asteroid belt past the sixth planet. Hurry up! I'm in pursuit of two fugitives, and they might be on their way out of the system by now."

The officer nodded again. "Of course. We detected their vessel shortly after our carrier entered this system. We thought your ship had destroyed them, and that you had left. How did you-"

"It's not important," Samus interrupted again. "Just hurry up."

The officer snapped to attention, saluting. "Of course. We have standing orders to assist you whenever possible, Hunter."

Samus waited impatiently as the patrol ship ascended through the atmosphere and made for the asteroid belt. It took the fast Federation vessel only a few minutes, but every second felt like an eternity, an eternity in which her prey could flee and be in any of a thousand systems within a couple of hours, so many branching possibilities that she had very little chance of finding them again.

As soon as she could detect her ship on her helmet scanners, she ordered it to rendezvous with the Federation patrol ship.

Curious, she turned to face the officer again. "What's the Federation doing in this system, anyway?"

He stiffened, his reluctance to answer obvious even through his armor. "I'm sorry, that's classified."

Samus frowned. "Stay away from the radioactive material on the planet's surface. It's not worth it."

The officer nodded slightly. "Noted."

_They _are_ here after the Phazon_, Samus thought. _Fools._

Without another word, she stepped into the airlock and blew herself into space. She spun in freefall for a few moments before righting herself with her suit's thrusters. Activating her homing beacon, Samus turned to watch her ship swoop in toward her, and tensed her legs as her boots impacted with the metal hull.

The gunship continued its flight as she climbed inside and removed her powersuit, striding forward into the cockpit as the armor faded away. Her scanners alerted her to weapons fire near the edge of the system, and she set the autopilot to head straight there.

As her gunship drew closer, Samus recognized the Ortrys' vessel, being pursued by a Federation fighter. She moved in to intercept, but was still out of weapons range when the fugitives' vessel escaped into hyperspace.

Calmly, she traced their trajectory and set her ship to follow.

--

_Hyperspace:  
In transit to Keron system_

Wild, fluorescent colors swirled outside the front viewport in a long tunnel stretching off into infinity. Hyperspace always looked like a long tunnel to Malysa, albeit an immaterial one. She knew the basic physics behind how faster-than-light travel worked, but as long as their hyperdrive was functional, all that mattered was that it was capable of shooting them from system to system to avoid the cold black expanse between stars.

Her brother lounged in the pilot's chair, his boots propped up on a blank space in the banks of monitors and controls. His hands were behind his head, his eyes closed and his general posture one of relaxation. All that there was to do now was let the hyperdrive do its job of pushing them through the vast distances, and so Davin took the opportunity to catch up on his rest.

Malysa herself had had quite enough sitting around, and so she made use of the small space in the rear compartment to run herself through hand-to-hand drills, practicing the moves her brother had taught her. She quickly tired of this, since there really wasn't enough room to move around properly and she'd done this once already today.

Hyperspace travel was excruciatingly boring.

"You could make yourself useful, you know," came her brother's voice from the cockpit. He hadn't moved.

She cocked an eyebrow. "Oh? What, exactly, is there to do around here?"

Davin swiveled the chair around and dropped his boots to the deck, an amused smile on his face. "For one, you can get rid of the foam in the rear compartment. I doubt Nugx will appreciate slipping around as he's fixing the ship."

Malysa looked around the rear compartment. Retardant foam still slowly dried in the corners from her attempt to slow Aran down when the two of them were fighting for control of the ship.

She sighed deeply. She hated cleaning, especially stuff like this.

But, Malysa was saved by the beeping of the subspace communications relay, one separate from the one she'd severed. It was also one which only activated for one purpose, and could only be accessed and activated by one person.

Davin turned around, his expression serious. Malysa quickly jumped forward and sat down in her chair, moving within range of the camera. Her brother took a deep breath before he hit the button that acknowledged the call.

One of the monitors flared to life, but showed only a black screen, as usual when receiving calls from this relay. "I have another job for you, if you're interested," a mechanically filtered voice said. It was impossible to tell if it had originally been a man or a woman, or even what species the speaker was.

"What kind of job?" Davin asked cautiously.

The filtered voice chuckled, a disturbing sound distorted by the filter. "The usual sort."

"How much?" Davin asked.

"Eighty thousand, a third in advance. I've already forwarded the money to your account."

Malysa restrained her urge to whistle in amazement. That was a lot of money, more than they'd ever gotten from this particular employer. Considering what they'd had to do for him or her in the past, this must be big.

Davin looked over at her, a questioning look on his face. They wouldn't hear what the job was until they accepted, as usual, and he was asking her opinion. Neither of them liked this, but eighty thousand was a lot of money.

She nodded slightly, knowing their sometime client could see them, but they couldn't see him or her.

Davin turned back to the monitor. "We'll do it," he said. "What's the job?"

They heard some sort of rustling, a sound neither of them had ever been able to figure out, and then the mechanically filtered voice spoke again. "The Federation is working on a reactor that, if usable, will use only a third as much fuel as a conventional reactor while still doing the same work. So far, they have only one working prototype. You will steal this prototype and all relevant research. Eliminate the scientists."

"Hey!" Davin snapped. "I told you before; I'm not killing anyone for you."

The voice chuckled again, a mocking undertone audible even through the filtering. "Still squeamish? You're not going to get far in your chosen profession if you're not willing to shed blood every once in a while."

Davin leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms. "I'm not going to kill the scientists. If that's a condition of the job, then you can forget it."

"Now look here!" the voice snapped. "I've done too much for you two for you to go around ignoring my orders because you don't feel like it. Do I have to remind you and your sister there of where you got the resources to steal and outfit the ship you're flying right now?"

Malysa watched her brother's reflection in one of the inactive monitors. He glowered at the active monitor, which now displayed a short video clip of Davin, dressed in a mechanic's coverall, walking nonchalantly over to drop into the hatch of this ship, the engines powering up a few seconds later. Another clip followed it, showing Malysa, her hair longer than it was now and in her natural color, talking to a soldier guarding the entrance to the docking bay of the ship. The camera zoomed in on her face, which, despite sporting glasses, was very recognizably her.

"I can arrange it so that the Federation is waiting for you no matter where you go," the voice said, its tone quite clearly threatening despite the filter. "If you continue to defy me, I will hire a bounty hunter to bring you both in for the reward the Federation has offered for your capture."

Davin's face became completely expressionless. "Is it possible to carry out the mission without killing the scientists?" he asked, his voice neutral. Only Malysa could have detected the hint of resignation in both his expression and his tone.

The voice was silent for a long moment. The image on the screen switched to a shot of both of them standing next to their ship at the spaceport on New Arizona. Both of them were surprised; they weren't aware that they'd been photographed in the hour they'd been at that spaceport three weeks ago. Malysa frowned. Obviously the Tyrant, as they'd nicknamed this particular client, was just screwing with them.

"Capture them, then," the voice said. "It will make your mission that much harder, but if you insist, you can bring them to the drop-off point along with the reactor. They may be useful."

"And if they're not?" Malysa said before she caught herself.

"You don't need to worry about that," the Tyrant answered. The screen flashed with information briefly. "I've sent you the mission parameters," the mechanically filtered voice said. "It's all plotted out; all you need to do is carry out my instructions, and you get enough money for me to leave you alone for a while."

Davin was silent for several moments. Finally, he nodded once. "Fine," he said. "We'll do it."

They heard the rustling noise again. "Excellent," the Tyrant said. "Your ship is nearing the hyperspace exit point. You should get ready." With that, the communication abruptly cut off.

Malysa shuddered theatrically. "I hate this guy. I say we ditch this ship and head for another sector."

Davin spun his chair to face her, his expression resigned. "You don't think she'd find us?"

Malysa cocked an eyebrow. "What makes you think the Tyrant is a woman?"

He smirked halfheartedly. "What makes _you_ think it's a man?"

Malysa smiled wryly. "I'll tell you what he is: unpleasant."

Davin turned back to his console to adjust some controls, but his voice was irritated, full of genuine anger of the sort that he rarely directed at her. "Well, there's not a whole lot I can do about it, okay? You heard what she said, didn't you? We pretty much have to do whatever she tells us to do." He glanced over his shoulder at her. "Now, start looking through that information she sent us."

Malysa did not reply, instead pulling up the file on her screen. There was very little she could do to provoke genuine anger in her brother, and so she wisely dropped the subject. She often wondered what had happened to get her brother practically indentured to the person they'd nicknamed the Tyrant, but she avoided asking him about it, as this was one of the few subjects he would refuse to talk to her about.

"We're coming up on the exit point," Davin said, his tone subdued. "Get ready."

--

_Hyperspace_

Samus Aran leaned back in the pilot's chair of her gunship, watching the psychedelic colors of hyperspace boil around her shell of metal and ceramic in a long tunnel stretching to infinity in both directions.

She had been silent for over two hours now, motionless in her chair as she watched the view and thought about what she'd do when she caught up with the Ortrys. One thing she was sure of doing was having to control her temper; if she didn't watch herself, Samus was quite sure she could now easily inflict irreparable bodily harm on Davin at least, though his sister would probably get little more than a needle full of sedatives to ensure she didn't try anything. Samus hated criminals like those two; the type that were just out to have fun and worse, were smart and resourceful. They often made aggravating hunts, though it had been an overly aggravating experience already.

Her subspace comm beeped, and the Hunter leaned forward to acknowledge it. "Yes?" she said.

A blandly pleasant humanoid appeared on her screen. "Am I addressing Hunter Aran?" he asked, a false note of cheerfulness in his voice.

"Yes," Samus said, attempting to control her impatience.

"Oh, good," the humanoid, probably some type of secretary or assistant, said. "My employer wishes to contact you. May I patch her through?"

"What's this about?" Samus asked.

"My employer, Frederika Solomon, is posting a bounty, and she is offering you the chance at a sole contract before she makes it public." The humanoid smiled blankly. Samus thought it made him look like a mannequin. "May I patch you through?"

Samus leaned back in her chair, making a dismissive wave at the monitor. "Yeah, go ahead."

The assistant smiled his mannequin smile again and reached down to type on a keyboard out of sight. The view switched to an office, richly decorated, with what appeared to be a real wood desk. Seated in a high-backed leather chair behind the desk was a dark-haired human woman who Samus guessed to be in her mid-forties. She was dressed in a severely cut dark blue suit, and Samus instantly labeled her 'high-powered executive' and prepared to dismiss her. She didn't do corporate jobs. The woman's accountant had probably absconded with the company pension fund or something, and Samus wasn't the least bit interested in those kinds of jobs.

"Do I have the honor of addressing Hunter Samus Aran?" the woman, presumably Frederika Solomon, said, a sharp, serious set to her steel-grey eyes.

_Not for long, you don't_, thought Samus, her hand poised over the comm to terminate the connection. "Yes," she said aloud. "What do you want?"

"As I'm sure my assistant informed you, I am posting a bounty, and I wish to know if you are interested." Solomon stared straight into the camera, keeping eye contact with Samus.

"How much?" Samus asked, her hand still on the console.

"Two hundred thousand," Solomon replied immediately.

Samus took her hand off the console. "For what?" she asked.

Frederika Solomon leaned slightly closer to the camera. "Two... individuals who have something that belongs to me."

"Oh?" Samus said, sensing an interesting story. "What kind of something?"

"That isn't your concern," Solomon snapped. "Are you interested in the job or not?"

Samus smiled slightly. "Tell me a little more about it first. Who are these..." she mimicked Solomon's pause, "individuals?"

Frederika Solomon relaxed slightly, leaning back in her seat and forcing a smile. "Their names are Davin and Malysa Ortry. Common thieves, barely worth a hunter of your talents, but I want the job done right. Your contract would be to bring them both in to my offices on the New Liverpool station in the Earth system, along with their ship and anything they might have in their possession."

Samus kept her expression carefully neutral, betraying none of her thoughts outwardly. She pretended to ponder the offer while she wondered why those two were worth so much to this executive.

Still, two hundred thousand was almost twice the combined Federation bounty of the siblings. It offered a nice incentive to keep chasing them.

"I'll do it," Samus said, leaning forward in her chair. "What information do you have on them?"

Frederika Solomon smiled, an expression Samus found unsettling for some reason. "Quite a bit. I'll have my assistant send the files immediately. Good luck, Hunter."

Some information flashed across the screen for a few seconds and then the connection was cut. Samus filed away the information she had received to look at later and returned her gaze to the swirling vortex of hyperspace.

Yes, she would chase down the Ortrys and bring them in, but first, she would do a little research into this Solomon woman to find out why she wanted them so badly. After all, with a price that high, there was a distinct possibility that whatever it was Frederika Solomon wanted that the Ortrys had was highly illegal, and therefore something the Federation would be interested in.

A double bounty would make this hunt even more satisfying.

--

Author's Note: Now that I've finished my larger 'Legend of Zelda' project, updates will be more regular on this story. I've already started on Chapter 4, so it should be up soon. Till next time!


	4. Chapter 4

Four

_Keron IV surface:_

_Nugx's black market garage_

"Oh, look at this! What in the hells did you to do to this ship, boy? Have a shoot-out with a whole squadron of fighters?"

"Actually, it was only half a squadron at the most," Malysa Ortry pointed out to the irate mechanic Nugx, who continued to make disbelieving noises and muttered curses in several languages.

The Ortrys had brought their ship to the fourth planet of the Keron system, Nugx's current base of operations, and it sat in one of the repair bays, surrounded by a vast assortment of half-assembled and/or broken machinery, the floor dotted with grease and other stains. Small winged insects attacked the lights overhead and each other with equal ferocity, resulting in intermittent buzzing and popping, which blended with the other hissing and banging and whooshing noises echoing about the hangar to result in a veritable symphony of machinery.

The conductor of the technological orchestra was Nugx himself, a short, somewhat portly humanoid of indeterminate species, probably a blend of one or more races, judging by his pointed ears and light orange skin, traits Malysa had only ever seen together on the mechanic himself. A wiry bush of brown hair stuck out in all directions atop his round head, making it look as if Nugx had stuck one of his long fingers into a power socket.

The mechanic dashed about the garage with a manic intensity, doing four things at once and directing a dozen more of his techs in their own tasks. Nugx didn't seem to be happy unless he was busy, and due to his being the best mechanic catering to those who operated outside the confines of the law, he was always very busy.

Nugx finally reached the rear of the ship, and he stopped everything else he was doing to gape incredulously at the missing engine there. "What did you do with the engine?" he demanded of Davin, as if the ship belonged to him instead of the siblings.

Davin shrugged, brushing a floating speck of dust off of the sleeve of his leather jacket. "The Feds were after us. I jettisoned it and blew it up to blind their sensors while we escaped."

Nugx's irritated expression slowly turned into one of grudging respect. "Well, I suppose that was a pretty good plan," he said, reaching up with one hand to poke a finger into the gap left by the engine. He turned to the elder Ortry, glaring up at him with bright green eyes. "I don't know if I have another engine of that same model, you know."

Malysa grinned at him. "But you know where to get one, don't you?"

The mechanic frowned, though she could tell it was only for show. Nugx loved fixing things, the more complicated the better.

"Yeah, I suppose I could scrounge something up," he said finally. "It'll take a while to get here, though."

Davin crossed his arms and leaned against the hull. "We have a job waiting, so don't take too long."

Nugx's bushy eyebrows lifted in interest. "Oh, yeah? What kind of job?"

Davin scowled. "An... unpleasant one."

Nugx nodded knowingly. He knew all about the Tyrant. "I see. Well, I'll see what I can do. Probably be three or four days at the least."

Davin nodded distractedly and jammed his hands into the pockets of his jacket. "Yeah, fine," he said. He turned to his sister. "I'm going into the spaceport. I'll be back in a couple hours." He abruptly turned and walked away, striding out of the hanger at a rapid pace.

Malysa watched his back as he walked away, frowning after him. "Goodbye!" she said sarcastically. She turned to Nugx, expecting a sympathetic ear. "What's his problem?"

The mechanic simply shook his head. "Let him go. He'll be himself again in a little while."

Malysa looked at Nugx questioningly. "How much do you know about the Tyrant? He always gets like this after we get a job from him, but he'll never tell me anything about why."

Nugx watched the departing figure of Davin for a moment, frowning thoughtfully. Finally, he gestured for Malysa to follow him into his office, a few steps away across the oil-stained floor.

Malysa followed Nugx across the hangar, weaving her way through a small army of techs hard at work repairing assorted bits of machinery, dodging sparks and grinning at the varied curses directed against particularly stubborn pieces of technology.

Nugx's office was cramped and cluttered, and before the mechanic sat down behind his desk, he picked up a pile of work orders and other pieces of paper out of a metal folding chair and set them on top of several other similar piles on his already covered desk to make room for Malysa.

She sat down and propped her boots on one bare corner of the desk, folding her hands in her lap as she waited for Nugx to get settled.

He tapped at his terminal for a few moments before turning to the girl, his expression serious. "Don't go repeating this to your brother," he said. "He doesn't like to talk about his Marine training for a good reason, and he probably doesn't want me talking to you about this."

Malysa leaned forward slightly. Davin had left her with the mechanic and his techs while he had gone off to enter the Federation Marines, and once he had returned two years later, he had refused to tell her anything about it. However, she knew he had discussed things with Nugx, since the mechanic was practically their adopted uncle and they often talked to him about things.

Nugx fished a bit of grease out of his fingernail and wiped it on the leg of his coveralls before he continued. "You know your brother got into some trouble while he was at the academy, right?" At her nod, he went on. "Well, what happened was, an admiral's son was in his same class, a real privileged type, you know, born with a platinum spoon in his mouth. The kid was a punk, spoiled and just a real piece of slime. His brother was okay, but he isn't who we're talking about." Nugx paused to bring his fist crashing down on a small multi-legged insect that crawled across a stack of papers, flicking the remains in the general direction of his trash can.

"Anyway, this admiral's son, he was a real jerk, and he got in all kinds of trouble, pulling pranks on the teachers and the other students and just generally being an idiot. Since his father was such a big-shot, they let a lot of it slide, since daddy dearest would be royally pissed if his little snot got expelled and would make life difficult for the academy administrators. Davin kept to himself mostly, and he tried to avoid the punk, but he got pranked a couple times like most of the cadets.

"Well, late one night, the admiral's son got bored, so he and a few of his bonehead friends decided to steal one of the academy's training ships and take it for a joyride. They flew around the planet for a while, buzzing farmers and just generally behaving like morons, and then at some point one of them got the bright idea to scare the students at the academy by pretending to attack the dorms."

Malysa nodded when he paused, silently asking her if she was following his story. Nugx flicked a bit of bug residue off the stack of papers, sending it toward where the rest of the insect was in the trash can.

"Davin was on sentry duty at the time with a few of his classmates and he caught the ship coming in on his sensor board. Since the admiral's son and his idiot friends had disabled the ship's locator beacon and consequently its identification, Davin didn't know who it was and he activated the academy's defense system, sending one of his squadmates to notify an instructor. He thought the academy was genuinely under attack, and since the planet was near Pirate space, he thought they might have confused the academy for a military base, since they raided the area sometimes.

"A few more of the admiral's son's friends intercepted Davin's squadmate, knowing what their buddy was up to, and tried to cover up what their friends were doing. Consequently, Davin himself was the only one on alert, though he didn't know that at the time.

"Your brother saw that the ship was coming in, charging weapons, so he dashed to a defense cannon and got behind the controls, intending to try to drive it off while the others got the rest of the defense system activated. The admiral's son or one of his friends was at the controls of their stolen ship, and it flew in on an attack pattern, imitating what they knew of Space Pirate strategy. Davin fired a warning shot past their viewport, and this startled whoever was at the controls so much that they lost control of the ship and crashed it into the lake next to the academy."

Nugx's computer beeped, so he stopped and reached over to type at it for a second with his nimble long-fingered hands, frowning to himself at what he read on the screen. " 'Scuse me for a sec," he said.

Malysa waited impatiently for him to start up again, though she could guess what had happened next. She idly twisted a strand of her hair around her finger as she waited, wondering if fluorescent orange was really the color she wanted right now.

Finally Nugx hit a final key on his terminal and turned back to her when it beeped again. "Now," he said, "when everything got all sorted out and the academy's commanders figured out what in the hells was going on, Davin was initially commended for his quick thinking, since, had it been an actual attack, his actions would have warned everyone so that they could have mounted a defense." The mechanic scowled. "But, when the admiral got wind of what had happened, he refused to let his precious idiot get in any sort of trouble. He had the official report say that his son and his imbecile friends were out on maneuvers, practicing night flying when your brother shot at them for no reason. He pinned all the blame on Davin and had him court-martialed, actually getting him charged with willfully trying to kill the admiral's son and his friends.

"He had a whole team of lawyers make up all kinds of evidence against your brother, and they made a circus out of it, producing witnesses who swore up and down how much Davin hated the admiral's son and was jealous of him. They even blackmailed the cadets who were on duty with your brother that night into saying that Davin plotted the whole thing out and told them how he was going to shoot down the training ship and make it look like an accident.

"A few of the instructors tried to take Davin's side, but the admiral had too much clout and he made them refrain from testifying in your brother's defense. One instructor refused whatever pressure they put on him and told your brother that he would tell the truth on the stand, but the admiral had him reassigned before he could testify."

Nugx paused for a second and Malysa scoffed, outraged but knowing any large bureaucracy was perfectly capable of such things. This explained why her brother hated the Federation so much, she thought.

Nugx continued. "The trial ended predictably, with Davin being charged with trying to kill his fellow cadets, and he was dishonorably discharged and sent to a Federation prison. He escaped and managed to make his way to my base at the time, and you know the rest."

Malysa dropped her boots the floor and leaned forward to look at the mechanic. "Nugx, what does this have to do with the Tyrant?" she said.

Nugx interlaced his fingers and set him on his desk, leaning forward with a serious expression. "Your brother still hasn't told me directly, but I think I've figured it out from talking to him about it. Whoever your Tyrant is helped Davin escape from prison in exchange for helping them with something they needed. Since he'd been formally charged, his escaping from Federation custody only made things worse, and now the person you call the Tyrant gets him to do jobs by threatening to let the Federation know where he is. It doesn't matter that he didn't do what he was originally charged with; he's broken so many more laws since then that they have plenty to charge him with if they ever catch you two. He's in so deep with this Tyrant person that he has to do his or her jobs whether he wants to or not."

Malysa frowned; this explained a lot, but she still had questions. Unfortunately, she probably wasn't going to get anything more out of Nugx. He looked like he regretted telling her this much already.

"Hey," the mechanic said, "don't let on to your brother that I told you, okay? He hasn't told you all this himself for whatever reason he doesn't want you to know, and he'd probably be pretty mad at me for telling you."

Malysa stood up, smiling slightly at Nugx. "It's in the vault," she told him. "Now, what can I do to help you get our ship fixed?"

He grinned teasingly. "You two banged it up pretty good. There's a lot to do."

Malysa gestured at the door to the office. "Let's get to it, then."

-------

_Aliehs III surface:  
Axol City spaceport_

Samus Aran entered the dump of a spaceport bar with purpose, headed for a back booth where one of her many informants waited. The curved, dirty walls seemed to be attempting to enfold her in a malevolent embrace, but Samus dismissed this as imagination and kept walking. The bar was a real dive, packed with lowlifes scuttling about their business like cockroaches in a dumpster, only the insects were probably more sanitary. The entire experience of being in places like this was unpleasant, and Samus' innate desire to avoid the company of others was always reinforced by these little trips, but the Hunter paid well for good information, so when one of her regulars called her up, she headed for the Aliehs system to meet with him, steeling herself for what it would mean. The informant, a human man named Mikal, was fairly reliable, so she thought whatever lead he might have would be reliable.

The Hunter did not wear her armor, not wanting to attract undue attention, and so wore nondescript loose pants and boots beneath a long dark jacket, a small pistol tucked into the pocket where she could get at it easily. Looking at some of the rough-looking characters huddled around the tables, Samus thought that perhaps she should have worn her powersuit anyway. A few of them looked like they'd just as soon shoot you and steal your money as nod in greeting.

She gave them no further thought; they were beneath her concern, and posed no threat to her whatsoever, even without her armor.

Mikal, a thin blond man wearing glasses and a scraggly attempt at a goatee, sat in the corner booth at the very back of the bar where he could watch everyone else without anyone facing his back. He was a mistrustful sort, and hated coming to places like this, but bars and cantinas were places where two people meeting for a quiet word would go largely unnoticed amidst the dozens of other similar conversations around them.

"Hello," he said, pointedly avoiding using her name. "I trust you didn't have any trouble finding this... place?"

"No," replied Samus, settling into the booth across from him. "What do you have for me?"

Mikal removed a data disc from his jacket pocket and slid it across the table. "I searched for those two names you mentioned, and I found out a bit about them, like you asked. The man was dishonorably discharged from the Federation Marines for taking a shot at some of his classmates, and I'm sure you know his rap sheet since then, but I can't find anything on him before he applied for the academy." He gestured to the disc. "That has everything about him and his sister I could find. There's nothing on the sister aside from her own rap sheet, mostly charges for being an accessory to her brother's crimes. She's never been arrested for any of it, and the man has only been detained once, back when he was discharged from the Marines, but they've managed to stay one step ahead of the authorities since then." He smirked. "They seem to be wily sorts."

"Yes," Samus said tersely. "They are. Have you had any luck figuring out where they are now?"

Mikal shrugged. "Their movements are erratic; I don't think they stay anywhere longer than five or six days, though my contacts have spotted a ship matching the description you provided entering the Keron system a few times within the last several weeks. They may have a base of operations or something of the sort there."

Samus leaned forward slightly, intrigued. "Have your contacts spotted the ship within the last week or so?"

Mikal shrugged again, his bony shoulders lifting beneath his jacket. "I told my contacts to keep an eye out for a ship of the model you mentioned with the modifications you described, and one of them thinks he saw it in the Hydrod system a day ago. 'Course, he told me the other day that a winged purple unicorn tried to sell him some stolen timepieces, so I don't know how reliable he is." He smiled weakly, but stopped when Samus' expression did not so much as twitch at his joke. "I'll let you know if I find anything," he said.

Samus withdrew a credit chip from her pocket and tossed it at him, standing and leaving the bar without another word.

-------

_Earth System:  
New Liverpool station_

Frederika Solomon, chief executive officer of Altair Industries, sat down in the high-backed leather chair, made from actual wood and leather, behind her expansive desk, also made of real wood cut from one of the few remaining forests on the planet below. One entire wall of her enormous office was a window, which, due to the rotation of the station, currently faced the planet that had birthed the human species. Earth hung like a blue-and-green jewel thousands of miles below her, glittering in the starlight. Tiny specks of light strung out like a glowing spider-web across the dark side of the planet, which New Liverpool station currently faced.

The view was breathtaking, magnificent, and awe-inspiring, never failing to draw a comment from those who entered the office. Frederika was frequently the recipient of compliments on the spectacular view of Earth and its surrounding solar system.

Frederika couldn't have cared less.

She rarely set foot on Earth, and tried to avoid it if at all possible. She hated planets, with their unregulated atmosphere and too-heavy gravity. Walking on a planet was like trying to sprint through mud. The smell was another offense altogether.

The view impressed the peons and kept them distracted while she closed deals, and that was a trick you couldn't be prosecuted for. Thanks largely in part to Frederika Solomon and the breathtaking, distracting view from her office, Altair Industries had become one of the largest defense contractors for the Federation, manufacturing almost all of the military's heavy weapons and fighters, not to mention the mining and refining facilities the company now owned, drastically reducing the cost of manufacture.

It was amazing how agreeable some sentients became when confronted with something as banal as a giant ball of rock and water. Apparently, those born on planets were easily impressed by seeing them from space.

Frederika sifted through the reports her assistant had prepared earlier that day, examining the various deals and trades and contracts Altair Industries was busily engaged in.

Two new messages especially caught her eye. One was a perfunctory update from the Hunter she had hired, Samus Aran, letting Frederika know that she was pursuing leads and assembling information on the Ortrys, and was confident she would have them soon.

The other message was from one of the many lowlifes she employed to conduct business she didn't report to the rest of the company. His message said that he was putting together the mission she'd requested of him and that he would have the item he was contracted to retrieve at the drop-off point soon.

Altair Industries stayed ahead of the competition through many means.

A bit of movement beyond her desk caught Frederika's eye, and she looked up to see a huge Federation warship flying in front of the station, headed for the docking ring a few levels above her office. Frederika made note of it and cleared her schedule for the next half hour, expecting a visitor.

Ten minutes later, a tall, handsome human man in a heavily decorated Federation Navy uniform strode into her office, accompanied by several armored Marines, which he told to wait outside. Stopping before Frederika's desk, he grinned broadly, revealing perfectly straight, pearly-white teeth.

Obviously artificial, Frederika thought to herself, just like his thick mane of dark brown hair, but she returned his smile, offering him a seat.

"Thank you," the admiral drawled in his North American accent, sitting down in one of the heavily cushioned chairs that faced Frederika's desk. He turned his head to look out of the expansive window and whistled in admiration, grinning. "Y'know," he said, gesturing to the window with one hand, "that's seventy percent of the reason why I look forward to coming here. That is really something."

Frederika adopted a smile, an expression that came anything but naturally with this particular visitor. "It's good to see you again, Admiral Welles. How is your son?" she said pleasantly, inwardly despising the small talk. Unfortunately, Admiral Welles almost never got down to business without discussing his idiot son first.

"Well on his way to Lieutenant Commander," Welles said. "Bright boy, always has been." He smiled, an expression Frederika thought made him look like the buffoon he really was. "His career's on the fast track, just like mine. He might even make Captain before he's thirty."

_Undoubtedly, since you're in charge of fleet promotions,_ Frederika thought to herself. _I'm amazed he isn't an admiral already._

Out loud, she said, "Your son is a fine young man, Admiral. I have no doubt he will be a fine officer."

Admiral Welles nodded as he leaned back in his chair. Frederika half expected him to prop his boots on the edge of her desk, but thankfully, he refrained.

"I came to let you know of our progress," the admiral said. "My battle group investigated Tallon IV, as you suggested, but we didn't encounter much resistance from the Space Pirates."

Frederika's eyebrows raised in surprise. "Oh? I thought they had that planet heavily fortified. It's one of their major bases."

Welles grinned amusedly. "Not anymore. Someone absolutely decimated the base there, and it looks like it was just one person, too."

Frederika allowed a disbelieving expression cross her features. "One person destroyed an entire base of Space Pirates?"

Admiral Welles nodded, absently rubbing his chin. "It looks like it was Samus Aran, since she was there when my group arrived. Plus, we found multiple indications of weapons fire, and the residual energy registered as Chozo weaponry. Aran is the only living being who makes use of Chozo technology anymore. Probably because she's the only one who understands it."

Frederika nodded once, understanding immediately. Aran was certainly one of the few sentients in the galaxy strong enough and skilled enough to engage that many enemies single-handedly.

"So you had no trouble retrieving a sample, then?" Frederika said, leaning forward slightly.

Welles nodded again. "The planet is soaked in radiation that played havoc with our sensors, but we did manage to locate a sizable quantity of Phazon in the remains of a mine. There's enough for the experiments you described." The admiral leaned forward in his chair eagerly. "How close are you to completing the weapon?"

Frederika tapped a few keys at her terminal, looking up the information. "We need the Phazon to complete the prototype, but I am certain our scientists will have the weapon ready for manufacture by the end of the year."

Welles clenched a fist and smacked it into the palm of his other hand. "Excellent! We'll turn the ugly bastards' tech back on them. They won't stand a chance against us now!"

Frederika shrugged minutely. "The Space Pirates have a much greater understanding of Phazon than we do. I hope you were able to retrieve their research as well?"

Welles leaned back in his chair again. "We found quite a bit scattered throughout the various labs, but some of it had been destroyed, either willfully by Aran or accidentally during battles with the Pirates. Phazon seems to be highly mutagenic, but my scientists have assured me that they know how to shield our troops from the radiation's effects."

"Excellent," Frederika said. "Leave the Phazon in the containment area, and my people will deal with it. I'll notify you when the weapon is complete."

Welles rose to his feet, towering over her desk, and Frederika stood herself to shake his extended hand.

"Pleasure doing business with you," Welles said, winking.

Frederika kept her expression neutral as the admiral left her office, but once the doors closed she released the sneer that had been fighting to emerge throughout their conversation.

"Cretin," she muttered to herself as she sat back down at her desk to resume working.

-------

_Keron IV surface:  
Nugx's black market garage_

Davin Ortry cursed loudly as his wrench slipped and he skinned his knuckles on a sharp edge in the innards of the missile launcher he was working on.

His sister's face appeared over the side of the launcher as she rose from where she had been kneeling, working on the other side. She smirked, leaning on the launcher to look over at him.

"How come I can't say that and you can?" she said teasingly.

Davin wiped his hand on his coveralls, looking over the scrape on his knuckles. "'Cause I'm older," he replied. "And I said so. And girls shouldn't swear anyway."

Malysa studied him thoughtfully for a moment, working her chewing gum around in her mouth as she smiled wryly. "You said so, huh? I don't think you get to use that as a reason anymore."

Davin leaned against the hull of their ship next to the missile launcher, flexing his fingers and frowning at the scrape, already starting to feel tender.

He grinned at his sister. "All right, you want a better reason? You can't swear because it's disturbing to hear foul language out of a sixteen-year-old girl."

She smirked disbelievingly. "But not out of a twenty-two-year-old man?"

Davin grinned again. "Exactly."

Malysa smiled wryly again, reaching up to push a strand of her bright orange hair out of her face and unwittingly leaving a streak of grease across her forehead. "I don't think I care for your logic, dweeb."

Davin shrugged, still grinning. "That doesn't matter. You still have to do what I say."

Malysa adopted an amusedly challenging expression. "Oh? Who says?"

Davin tapped his chest with his thumb. "I do."

Malysa raised an eyebrow, fighting to restrain a smile. "Well, maybe I don't recognize your authority."

Davin smirked. "Maybe I don't recognize that you don't recognize my authority."

Malysa leaned forward slightly, pointing a finger at him. "Well maybe I... Damn it," she said, finally grinning.

Davin smiled. "Gotcha there, don't I?"

Malysa frowned amusedly. "Quit slacking off. We have to get this launcher fixed."

Scratching at a bit of carbon scoring on the hull with his boot, Davin tossed his wrench back and forth between his hands. "You just don't want to admit you lost," he said teasingly.

In response, his sister flicked a glob of grease at him and ducked behind the launcher. Davin shook his head amusedly as he smeared the glob down the leg of his coveralls and knelt back down to go back to work.

"So," Malysa said from the other side of the missile launcher, "What's the plan for this new job?"

Davin frowned as he fitted the wrench onto the stubborn connection again. "I'm not sure," he replied. "It'll require some careful timing just to get into the system where the lab is, and then we somehow have to get down to the planet without being noticed."

"And then the hard part starts," Malysa said. "How are we going to get that reactor off the planet and out of the system in our ship? We don't have that much storage space on this thing." Davin heard a clank as she rapped the hull with one of her tools for emphasis.

Davin frowned thoughtfully as he pulled the wrench out to readjust it. "Well," he said, "The laboratory is on a farming world, isn't it?"

"Yeah, I think so," Malysa answered, her voice taut with effort as she strained at one of the connections on the other side of the launcher.

"If most of the open land is used to grow cereal crops, they have to have some kind of barge for transporting the grain out," Davin said, mostly to himself. "If we can get our hands on one of these barges, we can use it to sneak into the system and also to transport the reactor and the scientists out."

Malysa's face appeared over the top of the launcher, looking down at him concernedly. "We aren't still going to kidnap the scientists, are we?" she said, plainly indicating her distaste for this aspect of the mission.

Davin looked up at her, feeling resigned and angry, though not at her. "It's part of the job," he snapped. "You can't just pick and choose which parts of the mission you want to do. I don't like it any more than you do, but it has to be done."

"_Why_ does it have to be done?" Malysa demanded.

Frowning angrily, Davin crawled up the hull until he was at the top hatch, then entered their ship, gesturing for his sister to follow him.

-------

Once they were inside, away from any listeners, Davin rounded on his sister angrily. "Now, what is your problem?" he demanded with more heat than he probably meant.

Malysa could tell he was angry, but she was going to end this once and for all now. Whether he wanted to or not, he was going to talk to her about this.

Though she was shorter, Malysa straightened and stared him down indignantly. "My _problem,_" she hissed at him, "is that my stubborn jackass of a brother refuses to talk to me. Why the hell are we doing jobs for this person?"

"You think I like taking orders from the Tyrant?" Davin demanded. "You think we do these jobs for the money?"

"No," Malysa said, taking a step forward to look him in the eye, "I know this Tyrant person has something on you, but for some reason, you refuse to talk to _me_," she gestured to herself with both hands irritably, "the only family you have in the universe, about why this person calls us up every few months with some piece of tech or some bit of research they want us to steal for them, and you do it, every single time."

She'd heard Nugx's theory about it already, but Malysa was determined to hear it from her brother. Whatever this was, it had to be something she could help him with. The two of them had only each other to depend on, and there was no point in being a team if they were going to keep things from each other.

Davin turned away, scowling, but Malysa grabbed his arm and forcibly turned him around to look at her again.

"Davin," she said slowly, "who is the Tyrant, and what kind of hold do they have on you?" When he started to turn away again, his lips pressed together in a frown, she jerked him around to face her again. "Damn it, why won't you tell me?"

Davin wrenched himself free of her grip and slammed his fist into a bulkhead. "All right!" he practically shouted in her face. "You want to know? Fine, I'll tell you." He sighed angrily, blowing air out through his clenched teeth.

He was silent for a moment, but Malysa said nothing, knowing he wasn't just stalling. This had to be hard for him.

"After something that happened when I was in the Marines," he began, "I was sent to a Federation maximum-security prison. I still don't know who the Tyrant is, but she arranged an escape for me, and I took it." He had an almost haunted look in his eyes now. "The people who sent me there, they made sure the other prisoners knew what I'd... what I'd been charged with, and since most of them were vets, they made life very... unpleasant for me. Apparently even that lot thought taking a potshot at one of your comrades ranked up there as pretty despicable."

Davin looked up, his dark eyes meeting Malysa's. "I almost died in there, so when I started getting secret messages telling me there was a way to escape, I took the opportunity."

He reached up to scratch the back of his neck with one hand, still clearly uncomfortable. "I'm supposed to be in prison right now," he said. "The Federation's been after me for that since I escaped, but I've done so much since then that it doesn't matter that I didn't do what I was sent to prison for."

Malysa nodded. This echoed what Nugx had said. "So," she asked him gently, knowing he was still ready to talk and being demanding would get her nothing now, "what does the Tyrant have to do with this?"

Davin slouched against the wall and crossed his arms, idly tapping his fingers on his bicep. "Once I was out, the demands started," he said. "She said that since she'd helped me escape, I owed her, and so I had to return the favor. She arranged a ship for me, and I used it to steal a piece of tech she wanted, the specs for some kind of experimental shielding."

He looked over at her, his expression grim. "The only reason I still do jobs for the Tyrant is because she makes sure she can keep tabs on me. On us." He reached out and touched Malysa's shoulder. "She can tell the Federation where we are at any time, so I carry out her missions so that you don't go to prison. With everything we've done, they'd try you as an adult, and you don't want to see the inside of a prison, believe me."

Malysa leaned back against the wall, stunned. She'd never considered the reasons why they'd turned to a life of crime; she just thought that's what her brother wanted to do, and she went along with it.

A flash of anger swept through Malysa as she processed this. "Now just a damn minute," she said hotly. "They wouldn't have anything to charge me with if not for you. If you're keeping me away from the Federation, then why in the hell do we keep breaking their laws? It's just making them more and more pissed off at us!"

Davin straightened angrily, taking a step toward her. "What kind of work do you think I can get with my record, huh? Do you think I can just walk into a factory or something somewhere and say 'Hey, give me a job. I need to support my sister, but unfortunately, I have at least a dozen outstanding warrants for my arrest. Is that going to be a problem?'" He gestured boldly at the ship around them. "I do this kind of work because it's what I can get. I'm sorry you've been dragged into this, but I couldn't just leave you somewhere."

He reached up to pinch the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. "Maybe you'd have been better off if that's what I'd done."

Malysa heard the despair in his voice and suddenly her temper vanished. She knew she had to say something, so she touched his arm. "Hey, it's not your fault. I knew what I was doing, and it's just as much me as it was you. There's no point in getting all upset with each other about this."

He shrugged, one corner of his mouth quirking in a sort of half-smile. "Yeah, you're right," he said, attempting to sound light-hearted, but Malysa could still hear his irritation.

Davin gestured to the hatch. "We've still got a lot of work to do, so let's get back to it, okay?"

"I'll be right there," Malysa said, watching him go.

She sighed quietly. She could tell she'd upset him, but hopefully now he could see that he could talk to her about things like this. Her brother had always been private about some things, irritatingly so sometimes, but since the two of them were pretty much all each other had, it couldn't be a good idea to keep secrets from one another.

As she moved for the hatch, Malysa resolved to figure out some way for them to free themselves from the hold the person they called the Tyrant had on her brother and escape to the outer reaches or something, somewhere beyond the reach of the law and all the rest of the people after them.

* * *

Author's Note: Yes, I know it's been an unforgivably long time since the last update, but I've been swamped with school and some sort of evil flu-ish malady, among other things. This would likely have been done a week ago if not for that. Anyway, for those of you who follow my Zelda stories also, updates to those are forthcoming as well. I'm done with school for the semester and my next classes don't start until mid-January, so I plan to get plenty of writing done. Also, much thanks to Desteni for her input on this chapter. I believe it to be much improved, so a large debt of gratitude is owed. Till next time!


End file.
